IjS      jT^) 
87^- 
/-^/S* 


IRLF 


*B   17   076 


GIFT  OF 


HEROIC-HEART 


OUGH 


taken 


Moved  earn  and  heaven;  that 


which 


One  em 


eaktytime  and  fate, 


GEORGE     DANA 
BOARDMAN  PEPPER 

A  BIOGRAPHICAL  SKETCH 

BY 
FREDERICK  MORGAN  PADELFORD 


LEROY  PHILLIPS, 

PUBLISHER  :   BOSTON 
1914 


0 


FOREWORD 

IT  WAS  the  desire  of  my  father-in-law,  expressed 
to  me  many  years  ago,  and  expressed  again  shortly 
before  his  death,  that  I  should  act  as  his  biographer. 
Needless  to  say,  I  have  felt  honored  in  performing 
this  service,  but  those  who  knew  Dr.  Pepper  inti- 
mately will  appreciate  the  difficulty  of  the  task.  I 
could  only  wish  that  my  sketch  were  as  true  to  life 
as  the  portrait  by  his  son,  Charles  Hovey  Pepper, 
which  serves  as  a  frontispiece. 

FREDERICK  MORGAN  PADELFORD. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WASHINGTON, 
SEATTLE,  MARCH  26,  1914. 


A  NEW  YEAR'S  HYMN 

Tune,  Bera 

Eternal  God,  before  thee  now 
With  grateful  hearts  we  lowly  bow; 
With  joyful  lips  we  sing  thy  name, 
Thy  love,  from  age  to  age  the  same. 

Weeks,  months,  and  years  in  noiseless  flight 
Speed  on,  as  speeds  through  air  the  light; 
They  stay  not,  rest  not,  nor  can  we : 
Time  now,  anon  eternity ! 

The  old  year  gone,  the  new  begun, 
New  work  begins,  old  work  is  done ; 
The  past,  dear  Lord,  accept,  forgive; 
With  grace  new  lives  henceforth  to  live. 

Help  us,  through  all  the  coming  year, 
With  thee  to  walk,  to  know  thee  near; 
In  joy  or  sorrow,  good  or  ill, 
To  do,  to  bear,  to  love  thy  will. 

GEORGE  D.   B.   PEPPER. 


GEORGE  DANA  BOARDMAN  PEPPER 


DANA  BOARDMAN  PEPPER  was  born  in 
Ware,  Massachusetts  on  February  fifth,  1833. 
He  was  the  son  of  John  and  Eunice  Hutchinson  Pep- 
per, and  was  the  youngest  of  their  five  children.  His 
parents  were  both  of  old  New  England  stock,  and 
represented  many  families  that  had  been  in  New  Eng- 
land since  the  early  days  of  the  Massachusetts  Colony. 
His  father  was  a  sober,  hard-working,  truth-loving 
man,  a  grave  man  though  a  kindly,  who  embodied 
the  severity  of  the  more  austere  Puritan  traditions. 
"  He  left  no  dying  message  save  to  the  unconverted/1 
reads  the  account  of  his  death.  The  mother  was  an 
auburn-haired,  gentle-  voiced  woman,  who  possessed 
that  mystical  and  poetic  religious  temperament, 
Separatist  in  origin,  that  for  three  centuries  of  New 
England  life  has  struggled  against  the  hardness  and 
rigidity  of  Calvinism.  "  She  has  a  deep  affectionate 
nature  whose  cravings  have  not  always  been  satis- 
fied," wrote  her  son  in  1859.  Her  people  had  played 
no  inconsiderable  part  in  the  annals  of  the  country. 
Her  father,  Samuel  Hutchinson,  a  Revolutionary 
soldier  who  had  wintered  at  Valley  Forge,  was  a 
descendant  of  the  famous  Anne  Hutchinson,  mystic 
and  radical,  who,  mother  of  fifteen  children  as  she 


was,  had  sought  the  new  land  to  enjoy  the  ministra- 
tions of  John  Cotton  and  had  later  suffered  banish- 
ment in  defence  of  her  Antinomian  and  democratic 
principles.  Her  mother,  Sarah  Adams,  was  of  the 
immediate  family  that  gave  to  Massachusetts  its 
foremost  revolutionary  leader,  and  to  the  country 
two  of  its  presidents. 

In  the  son  the  temperaments  and  sympathies  of 
the  parents  were  happily  blended:  stern  Hebraism 
was  softened  by  a  glowing  sense  of  the  love  of  Christ, 
and  mysticism  was  tempered  by  a  grave  sense  of  the 
reality  and  awfulness  of  the  divine  law. 

For  his  mother  the  boy  felt  an  affection  most 
ardent,  an  affection  that  glows  through  many  a 
sentence  written  in  later  years,  many  a  sentence  im- 
pressed with  the  immortal  memories  of  childhood. 
In  one  of  his  letters,  he  thus  recalls  her  tenderness: 
"It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  me  when  I  sit  down  to 
write  you  to  know  positively  that  you  will  delight 
to  receive  and  read  what  I  write.  That  thought 
gives  the  same  sort  of  inspiration  that  we  experienced 
when  little  children  in  gathering  large,  ripe,  red 
clusters  of  currants  or  cups  full  of  sweet  strawberries 
or  pails  piled  with  whortleberries  for  our  mother, 
who,  we  knew,  would  smile  with  real  delight  at  their 
reception  and  give  us  as  requital  an  approving  look 
of  the  eye,  an  encouraging  word  of  praise,  and  a  true 
motherly  pat  of  the  head  and  stroke  of  the  hair,  — 
to  say  nothing  of  the  kiss." 

The  family  had  small  means  and  they  were  forced 
to  live  very  plainly.  There  was  little  money  for 

[2] 


books  and  none  for  things  beautiful.  But  despite  the 
absence  of  a  library  and  of  works  of  art,  the  essen- 
tials of  high  and  noble  living  were  there;  there,  because 
the  constant,  careful,  and  loving  study  of  the  Bible 
kept  the  home  life  in  a  continual  atmosphere  of 
vigorous  thought,  sensitive  feeling,  and  spiritual 
enthusiasm.  "  What  book  can  compare,"  he  wrote 
in  life's  decline,  "  what  book  can  compare  in  living 
interest,  in  deep,  sustained,  universal  interest,  with 
the  Bible?  Do  you  say  it  is  old  and  hence  must  lose 
hold?  Ah,  but  so  is  the  sunshine  old.  The  blue 
heaven  that  arches  over  us  to-night,  bestudded  with 
stars,  is  an  old  heaven.  And  those  stars,  we  call 
them  everlasting.  The  green  of  the  fields  in  these 
spring  days,  the  flowers,  the  birds  and  their  songs, 
all,  all  are  old,  and  so  is  God.  All  are  old;  we  have 
known  them,  every  one  of  us  has  known  them,  ever 
since  our  first  infant  wail  sounded  out  on  the  air, 
just  as  our  fathers  and  mothers  knew  them.  And 
yet  how  young  are  all  these  things!  And  so  is 
the  old  book  as  new  and  fresh  and  young  as  though 
it  were  of  yesterday. 

"  I  said  it  was  of  universal  interest,  and  is  it  not? 
For  childhood  it  is  a  garden  of  delight,  full  of  sunshine 
and  flowers  and  songs  of  birds.  We  go  back  as  near 
to  the  cradle  as  memory  will  carry  us  —  we  old 
folks  —  and  visit  ourselves  as  we  were  when  our 
favorite  chair  was  mother's  lap,  and  when  father  or 
mother  or  some  one  else  must  tell  us  a  story  each 
night  before  we  could  go  to  sleep.  We  hear  from 
our  own  young  lips  the  call  to  father  or  mother,  to 

[3] 


auntie  or  uncle,  to  tell  us  a  Bible  story,  another  and 
another  Bible  story,  the  same  one  we  have  heard 
full  twenty  or  a  hundred  times,  .  .  .  stories  of 
infancy,  youth,  manhood,  old  age;  of  love,  heroism, 
virtue,  religion;  clear,  sweet,  strong,  impressive, 
laying  hold  of  the  affections,  kindling  the  imagina- 
tion, taking  captive  the  heart.'* 

Akin  to  the  influence  of  the  home  was  the  influence 
of  the  Church,  so  akin  that  the  life  of  one  blended 
into  the  life  of  the  other.  Sixty  years  later,  the  mem- 
ory of  a  Sunday-school  teacher  still  stood  out  in  Dr. 
Pepper's  mind  as  one  of  the  great  formative  in- 
fluences in  his  life:  "  Who  of  us  has  not  in  some  silent 
hour  gone  back  in  memory  over  the  years  of  his 
school  life?  Then  have  we  again  seen  the  forms  and 
faces,  heard  the  voices,  and  felt  the  hand-touch  of  a 
certain  few  who  have  wrought  for  the  inspiration 
and  making  of  our  life  in  a  way  and  to  a  degree  all 
their  own.  These  are  the  immortals  that  stand  apart 
from  others  and  have  carried  with  them  even  into  the 
eternal  world  our  loyal,  grateful  affection.  That  which 
they  had  in  common  and  which  distinguished  them 
as  teachers  from  all  the  rest,  was  the  personal  element 
of  their  teaching.  The  others  were  familiar  with 
the  subjects  taught,  had  as  good  methods,  and  were 
equally  skilled  in  the  art  of  teaching.  The  something 
which  they  lacked  was  the  personal  influence,  the 
power  which  inspired,  impelled,  and  transformed  us. 

"  Take,  for  example,  that  Sunday-school  class  back 
in  the  southeast  corner  of  the  old  country  meeting- 
house. It  was  called  the  '  infant  class/  but  the 

[4] 


infants  were  from  four  to  eight  years  old.  Yes,  we 
are  there  once  more  as  small  and  young  as  the  small- 
est and  youngest.  We  see  before  us  now  as  then 
one  face,  one  pair  of  lovelit  eyes,  one  sweetly-smiling 
mouth,  one  gracious  woman,  our  teacher.  We  can 
remember  not  one  word  that  she  ever  said  to  us. 
We  came  to  know  that  she  could  not  have  taught  in 
any  scientific  way  or  met  the  demands  of  modern 
pedagogics.  Nevertheless  she  somehow  placed  her- 
self in  the  very  throne  of  our  heart  and  life,  mastered 
us,  gave  tone  and  direction  to  our  life,  and  from  that 
day  has  been  one  of  the  supreme  forces  in  building 
up  our  manhood  or  womanhood.  This  is  the  suprem- 
acy of  the  personal  element  in  teaching. " 

Life  in  Ware  was  pioneer  in  character,  for  the 
country  was  rough  and  undeveloped.  There  was 
work  for  every  member  of  the  household,  and, 
when  not  in  school,  the  lad  was  busy  on  the  farm, 
or  busy  helping  his  father  in  the  lumber  mill  or 
charcoal  kilns.  He  thus  grappled  with  nature  at 
first-hand,  and  learned  the  dignity  and  the  worth  of 
labor.  This  experience,  as  well  as  the  inner  home  life 
and  the  influence  of  the  Church,  was  important  in 
determining  what  manner  of  man  he  was  to  be, 
and  he  showed  throughout  life  the  influence  of  this 
hard  work  in  his  powerful  grasp  of  the  fundamental 
conditions  of  life,  in  his  stern  and  massive  sense  of 
actualities. 

The  village,  and  especially  the  frontier  village, 
the  haven  of  the  hardy  and  independent,  the  forci- 
ble leveler  of  society,  has  ever  been  the  centre  of  the 

[5] 


most  vigorous  American  democracy.  Ware  im- 
pressed the  spirit  of  democracy  upon  this  lad  and  he 
remained  a  sturdy  democrat  through  life.  "  My  blood 
was  not  good,"  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  in  explanation 
of  a  forced  vacation.  "  Tom  says  that  would  go 
against  me  in  the  eye  of  O.  W.  Holmes,  who  believes 
in  blood  —  the  codfish,  aristocratic  humbug ! "  Demo- 
cratic Ware  was  clashing  with  aristocratic  Boston, 
just  as  democratic  hamlets  had  been  clashing  with 
aristocratic  Boston  for  upwards  of  two  hundrd  years. 
"  The  dressing  was  superlative/'  he  wrote  of  a  recep- 
tion in  1860.  "  Average  length  of  the  trails  one 
yard,  much  to  the  detriment  of  locomotion  —  and 
common  sense."  The  essence  of  his  social  creed  is 
contained  in  the  following  sentence  from  his  Lin- 
coln address:  "  Any  aristocracy  but  that  of  fairly 
won  and  clearly  shown  merit  is  hostile  to  our  prin- 
ciples." 

Despite  the  work,  there  was  time  for  the  long 
thoughts  of  youth  and  for  its  dreams,  for  warm  sum- 
mer revery  deep  in  daisy  fields,  for  walks  beneath  the 
winter  stars,  for  hours  of  silent  nocturnal  contempla- 
tion as  he  tended  the  slow-burning  fire  of  the  kilns, 
the  mystery  of  silence  and  darkness  without,  and 
within,  the  dull,  deep  glow  of  the  flame,  and  the  wood 
slowly  changing  to  charcoal. 

An  intense,  poetical  love  of  nature  was  thus  con- 
firmed in  a  spirit  inherently  devout  and  mystic,  and 
this  passion  for  the  beauty  and  mystery  and  majesty 
of  the  external  world  never  cooled.  "  You  have 
thought,"  he  wrote  his  future  wife,  during  his  life  at 

[6] 


Newton,  "  of  a  tall,  strong  man  who  moves  through 
the  halls  of  this  building,  and  along  the  paths  of 
this  hill,  feasting  his  eyes  on  the  most  lovely  land- 
scape, rich  beyond  expression,  in  the  deep  green  of 
its  spring  attire;  its  far-reaching  forests,  its  many 
hills,  its  lovely  lake,  and,  sprinkling  charmingly  the 
whole  wide  circular  sweep,  innumerable  mansions 
of  various  structure,  color,  and  value,  while  the 
breath  of  God  stirs  gently  through  and  over  all, 
pure  and  invigorating  and  transforming.  In  its 
blueness  the  vaulting  sky  supports  the  many-formed 
clouds,  which,  like  the  chariots  of  the  Almighty,  roll 
their  huge  bulk  along,  or,  like  the  pillows  of  sleeping 
angels,  rest  white  and  soft,  or,  like  the  streaming 
hair  of  the  sylphs  of  the  sky,  stretch  far  away  in 
fine,  delicate  fibres  of  gently  waving  lines,  or  as 
yesterday,  like  a  world-overshadowing  sea,  from 
whose  bottom,  through  the  opposing  atmosphere, 
continual  supplies  come  sifting  or  pouring  down  until 
our  great  overgrown  mother  earth  cries  out  from 
satiety  '  enough !  enough !  *  and  the  tall  stout  grass 
bows  beneath  the  excessive  burden  and  worshipfully 
requests  a  cessation  of  future  hostilities  in  the  unequal 
strife." 

Indeed,  his  feeling  for  nature  is  almost  Words- 
worthian  in  its  consciousness  of  the  individuality 
of  particular  spots  and  days:  '  This  morning  is 
clear,  warm,  and  delightful.  You  ought  just  to  be 
here  to  enjoy.  The  trees,  they  are  splendid,  gor- 
geous. It  is  charming  to  walk  these  broad,  tree- 
bordered  streets  at  this  season.  Such  and  so  many 

[7] 


tints  and  shades,  so  blended.  And  then  the  leaves 
come  sailing  down  so  pensively  one  by  one,  and  they 
rustle  as  you  walk.  But  most  powerful  of  all  over 
my  mind  is  what  can  only  be  expressed  briefly  and 
comprehensively  as  the  spirit  of  Autumn.  Every 
day  has  its  own  life.  You  must  get  acquainted  with 
it  just  as  you  do  with  a  person.  You  must  come  to 
learn  its  disposition,  its  little,  varying,  peculiar 
moods.  Ah,  this  is  grand,  this  communion  with 
nature.  How  provoking  though  to  feel  that  you 
don't  begin  to  appreciate  a  millionth  of  what  there 
is,  to  know  your  unfitness  to  do  so,  to  be  aware 
that  as  to  you  such  treasures  are  being  squandered, 
lost!  " 

When  he  had  completed  the  schooling  offered  by 
his  native  town,  it  was  decided  that  he  should  have 
an  academy  course,  and  he  accordingly  entered 
Williston  Seminary.  This  marked  an  epoch  in 
his  life,  for  he  came  under  the  tutelage  of  a  man  who 
awakened  in  him  a  passionate  love  for  learning,  and 
lit  the  lamp  which  burned,  undimmed,  through  a 
lifetime,  —  Josiah  Clark.  This  indebtedness  the 
pupil,  when  an  old  man,  acknowledged  in  the  following 
words:  "  He  was  an  elegant,  exact,  thorough  scholar; 
his  mind]  in  its  processes  was  quick  and  sure.  He 
was  the  very^soul  of  honor,  manly  and  godly.  He 
knew  boys  and  we  boys  knew  him,  and  because  we 
knew  him  we  honored  and  loved  him.  He  made  us 
work,  oh  prodigiously  he  could  make  us  work,  just 
because  he  was  he.  For  him  we  would  do  anything. 
He  woke  the  sleeping;  he  almost  raised  the  dead. 

[8] 


So  mightily  did  he  rouse  worthy  ambition  and  in- 
spire to  work  that  sometimes  he  almost  killed  the 
living.  How  many  were  they  who  under  him  first 
learned  to  learn,  to  study  and  achieve.  What  was 
it  in  him  that  wrought  this  transformation?  Was 
it  his  scholarship,  his  method,  his  drill?  Yes,  in 
part,  and  in  large  part,  but  above  all  and  more  than 
all  else  it  was  the  man,  the  personal  element  in  his 
teaching.  It  was  just  Josiah  Clark." 

So  thoroughly  did  the  lad  master  the  Greek  and 
Latin  classics  of  academy  days  that  pleasant  echoes 
of  Cicero,  Virgil,  and  Homer  linger  ever  about  his 
writings.  Thus,  an  address  before  the  Bible  Society 
of  Maine,  written  when  he  was  President  of  Colby, 
closes  with  the  following  words:  "  And  where  are 
not  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Maine  to  be  found? 
They  are  in  all  lands  and  on  all  waters.  So  may  the 
just  praises  of  your  work  encircle  the  globe,  and  even 
be  spoken  down  from  the  skies." 

Three  years  under  Josiah  Clark  and  a  college 
course  was  inevitable.  So  in  the  fall  of  1853  the 
young  man,  then  twenty-one,  entered  Amherst 
College.  Even  in  those  days,  when  intellectual 
enthusiasm  and  scholastic  attainment  were  consid- 
ered an  actual  merit  and  adornment,  he  was  con- 
spicuous among  his  fellows  and  was  honorably  and 
affectionately  dubbed  "  Greek  Root  Pepper."  A 
classmate  gives  the  following  testimony  of  the 
peculiar  esteem  in  which  he  was  held:  "  By  general 
consent  Pepper  was  the  leader  of  our  Amherst 
class  in  honors  and  achievements,  and  in  essential 

[9] 


greatness.  He  was  not  simply  richly  furnished  and 
able  intellectually,  but  he  was  magnanimous.  He 
was  great  and  good  through  and  through.  I  have 
always  thought  of  him  as  the  best  all  round  scholar 
of  his  class,  and  he  was  so  unselfish,  so  generous,  so 
disinterested,  that  no  one  ever  thought  of  envy- 
ing him.  We  all  admired  and  trusted  and  loved 
him." 

Small  wonder  that  he  was  thus  loved  and  admired, 
for  if  ever  a  young  man  quaffed  with  a  relish  the 
pleasant  wine  of  generous  friendship  it  was  he. 
Of  a  visit  from  his  college  chum,  Tom  Grassie,  later 
his  brother-in-law,  he  writes  as  follows:  "  Very  wel- 
come was  the  apparition  yesterday  of  his  broad, 
genial  face  and  the  grasp  and  shake  of  his  strong, 
friendly  hand.  Very  fine  have  been  our  sleepings 
and  sittings  and  walkings,  our  lookings  and  thinkings 
and  talkings,  our  sparrings  and  laughings  and 
balkings."  And  of  another  visit  from  the  same 
friend:  "  Thomas  —  Tom  —  yes,  Tom  Grassie  did 
surely,  really,  and  without  doubt  or  fail  come  in  the 
stage  last  Thursday  to  see  and  visit  me.  Yes,  and 
I  was  jubilant  to  see  him  and  hobbled  out  to  the  best 
of  my  ability  to  greet  him  and  take  him  in  and  warm 
and  feed  him.  A  great  and  very  glorious  time  did 
that  same  Tom  and  I  have,  mutually  rejoicing  and 
growing  fat  at  heart.  True,  I  was  a  cripple,  and 
unable  to  move  save  as  the  snail  moves,  but  we  could 
lie  on  the  lounge  and  read  and  talk  and  laugh,  and 
we  could  ride  in  the  boat  and  amuse  ourselves,  and 
we  could  lie  out  in  the  great  forest  temple,  grand 

[10] 


and  noble,  watching  the  shadows  of  the  pillars,  the 
waving  of  the  adornments,  the  glory  of  the  luminary, 
the  multiplied  beauty  in  majesty  of  everything 
around,  listening  to  the  many- voiced  choir  singing 
to  the  ceaseless  music  of  the  great  universal  ^Eolian 
lyre, —  all  in  keeping,  save  perhaps  the  reading  of  a 
sermon  by  me,  as  the  day  (Sunday)  seemed  to  require. 
It  was  all  too  soon  that  Monday's  dawn  crept  west- 
ward from  the  ocean  ...  to  the  summit  of  our 
great  hill  just  east  of  us,  where  it  stopped  a  while, 
looked  down  into  the  valley  regretfully,  but  to  the 
call  of  Duty  leaped  full  and  fair  into  the  window  of 
my  father's  bedroom,  who,  obedient,  sprang  up  and 
called  me,  as  it  was  time  for  Tom  and  me  to  prepare 
for  a  ride  to  Barre  with  our  noble  little  Jerry.  I 
left  Tom  safe  in  Barre  before  nine  o'clock,  glad  of 
his  visit,  sorry  to  part  with  him,  and  wishing  him 
great  success  now  and  always." 

Of  an  Amherst  commencement  and  a  reunion  of 
his  class,  he  wrote  in  the  following  vein:  "  I  was 
on  my  way  to  Amherst  when  I  wrote  last.  What  a 
week  that  last  was!  Elisa  has  told  you  the  general 
facts  respecting  it,  but  she  does  not  know  what  it 
was  to  be  a  member  of  the  class  of  '57.  Not  a  minute 
of  rest  by  day  and  scarce  an  hour  of  sleep  by  night; 
-  unrest  —  hurry  —  friends  to  visit  —  lectures  to 
attend  —  class  meetings  —  classmates;  what  unrest, 
what  happy  unrest!  Old  familiar  faces  smiling  a 
genial  welcome  and  fraternal  greeting.  Old  faces, 
half  recognizable,  turned  to  you  courting  recogni- 
tion, hands  of  unknowns  extended  for  shaking.  How 


we  went  through  the  crowd  peering  into  strange 
eyes,  inquisitively,  anxious  to  find  shining  there  a 
familiar  soul.  A  strange  work,  that;  so  ghost-like! 
Will  it  be  so  in  the  other  world?  " 

Amherst  College  was  poor  in  material  equipment, 
but  rich  in  men,  and  it  gave  young  Pepper  a  liberal 
education,  gave  him  that  enlargement  of  mind,  that 
philosophic  habit  of  thought,  that  sense  of  values 
and  of  the  meaning  of  life,  which  result  from  the  study 
of  representative  subjects,  and  of  their  relations  one 
to  another  and  each  to  all.  It  taught  him  that 
truth  is  the  great  thing  and  that  one  must  be  loyal 
to  it  at  any  cost,  and  it  emphasized  the  lessons 
taught  by  home  and  by  church,  that  the  life  of  man 
is  infinitely  precious,  and  that  material  things  are  of 
little  moment  compared  with  the  things  of  the  mind 
and  spirit. 

This  loyalty  to  truth  found  expression,  twenty 
years  after  graduation,  in  the  following  impressive 
words:  "  It  is  a  characteristic  of  reason  that  it  loves, 
craves,  seeks,  grasps,  holds  truth  for  truth's  sake. 
Independently  of  every  other  consideration,  in  disre- 
gard of  every  other  consideration,  nay,  in  sublime 
defiance  of  every  other  consideration,  the  human 
mind  will  know  what  is.  It  is  of  the  deepest  inmost 
nature  of  mind  to  see  and  own  the  kingly  authority 
of  truth,  and  to  buy  it  at  whatever  cost.  Impelled 
and  sustained  by  this  controlling  and  divine  prin- 
ciple of  reason,  men  have  pushed  their  investigations 
in  every  possible  direction,  into  the  depths  of  the 
earth  and  the  height  of  heaven,  into  all  the  works  of 

[12] 


nature  and  of  man,  into  human  institutions  and 
human  beliefs.  They  demand  that  light  shine, 
that  whatever  is  not  of  the  light,  however  venerable 
for  age,  however  sacred  through  association,  however 
precious  to  the  heart,  should  flee  and  vanish.  The 
authority  that  would  stop  their  search  for  truth  and 
their  declaration  of  truth  discovered,  they  disown 
and  defy,  come  it  from  church  or  state,  be  it  exer- 
cised in  the  name  of  God  or  man.  That  it  cannot 
be  of  God  every  true  man  feels,  for  he  is  conscious 
that  that  in  him  against  which  it  rises  is  itself  of  God. 
And  were  it  needful  to  keep  in  their  place  and  power 
the  Bible  and  Christianity  by  stopping  the  march 
of  investigation  and  discovery,  mind  would  say,  and 
say  rightly,  '  Let  them  go,  one'  and  both.  Give 
despair  established  in  truth  rather  than  hope  propped 


on  error.' 


Of  the  worth  of  man  he  wrote  as  follows:  "  Church 
and  school,  each  in  its  own  sphere,  are  working  on 
the  same  view  of  man.  And  what  is  that  view? 
It  is  this:  that  nothing  in  this  world  save  man 
possesses  intrinsic  worth,  that  this  worth  of  man 
defies  all  comprehension  or  calculation,  and  that 
it  belongs  to  him  by  virtue  of  that  which  he  can 
become  and  be.  On  this  view,  property,  station, 
achievement,  accomplishment,  and  the  world  itself, 
each  and  all  have  worth,  not  in  themselves  and  for 
their  own  sake,  but  from  their  relations  to  men  and 
a  genuine  manhood.  It  is  a  view  which  equally 
contradicts  the  theory,  whether  consciously  or  un- 
consciously held,  whether  tacitly  or  openly  taught, 


whether  embodied  in  customs  or  institutions,  which 
subordinates  man  to  place,  which  puts  position  first 
and  manhood  last,  which  makes  the  person  a  tool 
and  the  occupation  its  owner,  which  regards  the 
raiment  as  more  than  the.  body,  and  the  meat  as 
more  than  the  life,  which  degrades  human  nature  and 
dishonors  God's  image.  .  .  .  That  must  be  regarded 
as  the  most  practical  training  which  does  most  for 
the  mind.  What  if  it  really  were  true  that  a  man 
whose  eight  or  ten  years  between  boyhood  and  ma- 
turity had  been  spent  in  gaining  liberal  culture  and 
manly  development  was,  for  that  reason,  unable  to 
make  as  much  money  as  otherwise  he  might?  Would 
that  prove  that  those  years  were  spent  unwisely? 
Is  money-making  the  chief  end  of  man?  Mammon 
says  yes.  Christ  says  no." 

In  like  spirit,  he  was  very  sensitive  to  the  appeal 
of  nobility  and  always  responded  thereto  with  en- 
thusiasm. Thus,  during  a  visit  at  Andover  in  1860, 
he  writes:  "I  have  attended  two  of  Professor  Phelps's 
lectures,  the  one  on  elegance  of  style,  the  other  on 
naturalness  of  style,  and  both  admirable  beyond  all 
criticism.  It  is  an  honor  to  belong  to  the  same  race 
of  beings  with  such  men.  One  thinks  better  of  the 
human  family  when  he  sees  or  hears  a  true,  noble 
man.  One  then  feels  ashamed  of  any  degradation 
of  his  own  powers  or  character,  and  inwardly  vows 
that  he,  too,  will  strive  for  the  excellent.  I  glory  in 
a  true  man,  wherever  he  breathes,  whatever  his 
name.  Let  him  come  and  speak  and  act  himself 
out  before  men,  that  the  inspiration  of  sympathy 

[14] 


may  move  to  truth  and  greatness  those  who  are 
witnesses.'* 

With  the  cynic  who  would  interpret  all  endeavor  as 
selfish  he  had  small  patience,  as  the  following  en- 
thusiastic report  of  a  youthful  encounter  illustrates: 
"  My  father  came  out  to  the  hotel  and  found  me 
earnestly  combating  the  heretical  and  brutish  senti- 
ments of  a  bold  Universalist,  who  contended  that 
there  was  no  such  thing  as  self-sacrifice  in  the  world, 
that  every  man,  Christ  excepted  —  and  he  hardly 
wanted  to  except  him  but  did  not  dare  to  do  other- 
wise — ,  labors  only  to  promote  his  own  ease,  that 
the  ministry  is  a  trade  by  which  to  get  the  easiest 
and  best  living,  that  a  minister  has  only  to  get  up 
the  best  and  smoothest  possible  '  story  '  to  please 
the  people,  and  that  every  preacher  does  this,  each 
in  his  own  way.  You  see  there  was  quite  material 
enough  to  draw  me  out,  and  I  dealt  upon  the  man 
such  blows  as  his  arrogance  and  miserable  folly 
seemed  to  demand,  —  or  rather  upon  the  sentiments 
of  the  man." 

With  such  an  attitude  toward  life,  trained  by  home, 
by  church,  by  school  and  college,  that  "  our  proper 
business  is  to  enrich  society,  to  bring  into  it  truth 
and  grace  and  goodness,  to  leave  the  world  better 
than  we  found  it,"  trained  to  believe  that  "  God  is 
man's  chief  want,  the  want  of  all  wants,  the  need  of 
all  needs,  need  most  imperative,"  it  was  but  natural 
that  long  before  the  completion  of  his  college  course 
he  should  have  decided  to  give  himself  to  the  ministry. 
Accordingly,  in  the  fall  of  1857  he  entered  the  Newton 

[15] 


Theological  Seminary.  For  the  seminary,  beautiful 
in  situation,  the  nurse  of  piety,  he  conceived  a  most 
ardent  devotion:  "  Home  again, "  he  wrote,  at  the 
opening  of  his  senior  year,  "  home  again,  here  on 
the  hill,  beautiful  in  itself,  beautiful  in  its  surround- 
ings, sacred  in  its  associations,  the  object  of  hope 
for  the  future,  green  in  promise  like  the  very  Eden 
which  from  every  side  smilingly  and  gloriously  looks 
up  now  to  this  summit. " 

The  three  years  in  the  seminary  were  of  the  great- 
est value  to  him,  for  they  furnished  opportunity 
to  classify  his  theological  and  philosophical  views, 
to  adjust  and  harmonize  the  claims  of  the  spiritual 
life  and  the  life  of  the  intellect,  and  to  test  the 
validity  of  the  Baptist  faith  by  judicial  and  dis- 
passionate study  of  nineteen  centuries  of  church 
history.  While  in  no  way  neglecting  the  routine 
curriculum,  he  pursued  such  lines  of  more  or  less 
independent  study  in  a  manner  that  won  the  com- 
mendation of  the  faculty  and  commanded  the 
admiration  of  his  less  gifted  classmates. 

At  the  conclusion  of  his  course  he  was  approached 
by  the  trustees  with  reference  to  remaining  at 
Newton,  but  "  I  told  them  my  convictions."  What 
those  convictions  were  is  clear  from  the  following: 
"  I  hope  that  I  am  not  aiming  for  worldly  distinc- 
tion, for  self-aggrandizement,  for  the  mere  outward 
tokens  of  success,  but  for  that  success  which  con- 
sists in  the  faithful  performance  of  duty,  in  the  con- 
tinual witnessing  for  Jesus  by  deed  and  by  the  spoken 
word,  in  the  parish,  by  the  fireside,  in  the  shop,  in 

[16] 


the  street,  and  chiefly  in  the  pulpit, —  that  high 
honor  of  declaring  faithfully  the  whole  counsel  of 
God,  withour  fear,  with  decision,  with  tenderness,  con- 
tinually under  trials  and  in  prosperity.  Oh,  to  be  a 
true,  worthy  minister  of  Jesus  Christ!  It  is  a  glory, 
—  the  greatest  honor  conferred  upon  living  man/' 

In  February  of  1860  he  had  spent  three  weeks 
with  the  First  Baptist  Church  in  Waterville,  and 
before  the  expiration  of  the  visit  had  been  invited  to 
accept  the  pastorate.  Despite  the  "  embarrassing 
importunity  "  of  the  people  he  refused  to  decide  the 
matter  before  graduation.  It  was  then  voted  that 
the  position  be  kept  open  until  summer  in  the 
hope  that  he  would  accept.  "  Town  and  college  are 
united  upon  you  with  singular  and  happy  unanim- 
ity," wrote  President  Champlin,  chairman  of  the 
committee.  For  his  part,  the  young  divine  made  a 
careful  study  of  the  leaders  of  the  Church.  It  may 
be  of  interest  to  the  older  generation  —  especially 
of  Colby  men  —  to  know  what  that  estimate  was: 
1  Took  tea  that  Saturday  evening  with  Professor 
Hamlin.  I  became  much  attached  to  him.  He  is 
a  modest  man,  but  a  man  of  a  rich,  fine,  genial  na- 
ture, of  a  clear  head,  and  a  pure  heart.  Mrs.  H.  is 
frank,  outspoken,  artless,  sympathetic,  good.  Of 
the  many  friends  in  Waterville  none  got  a  stronger 
hold  of  me  than  these.  President  Champlin  is  a 
strong,  practical,  up  and  down,  reliable  man,  win- 
ning love  less  than  commanding  respect.  Mrs.  C. 
is  a  lady,  cultivated,  quiet,  easy,  but  apparently  a 
little  —  a  very  little  —  conscious,  but  I  like  her. 

[17] 


Professor  Lyford  is  a  rigid,  straightforward  man  of 
principle,  not  excitable,  but  even,  persistent,  efficient. 
Mrs.  L.  is  a  woman  of  a  commanding  presence,  - 
noble  forehead,  fine  eye,  easy  but  dignified,  cheerful 
but  serious,  unassuming  but  intelligent.  I  like  her. 
Professor  Smith  is  professorial  and  cordial  and  sensi- 
ble. Professor  Foster  is  a  man  of  sandy  hair  and 
brown  features,  not  wordy,  but  thoughtful  and 
gentlemanly,  of  sterling  worth, —  for  a  long  time 
editor  of  Zion's  Advocate,  Portland.  His  wife,  a 
small,  cultivated,  attractive  woman,  and  there  is  a 
little  John  who  is  a  jewel.  Deacon  Stevens  is  a 
good,  round,  energetic  business  man,  and  his  wife 
less  in  force  but  greater  in  culture.  Now  you  have 
an  epitome  of  those  with  whom  I  have  eaten,  talked, 
laughed,  lived." 

In  the  summer  he  accepted  the  call,  and  entered 
upon  the  pastorate  in  the  autumn,  being  ordained  on 
September  sixth.  He  entered  upon  his  work  with 
an  ardor  almost  feverish,  with  a  young  man's 
overwhelming  sense  of  the  gravity  of  his  work: 
"The  prayer  meetings  here  are  a  little  too  cold; 
I  feel  very  anxious  about  them.  It  seems  to  me  that 
they  must  be  improved.  If  we  could  only  melt 
down  together  in  view  of  our  terrible  sinfulness  and 
hardness  of  heart,  if  we  could  but  be  deeply  penitent 
and  have  the  divine  spirit  within  us,  how  glorious 
would  it  be.  It  is  too  bad  to  utter  and  to  hear  the 
words  which,  if  charged  with  the  Spirit,  would  bring 
us,  surely,  infallibly  bring  us  all,  just  the  needed 
blessing,  and  yet  feel  that  they  lack  that  spirit. 

[18] 


How  can  I  go  and  preach  on  the  Sabbath  unless  God 
go  with  me!  The  atmosphere  of  a  literary  institu- 
tion is  apt  to  chill  social  prayer  meetings  of  this  sort, 
but  God  is  mighty  enough  to  warm  everything  and 
break  down  everything.'1 

His  pastoral  work  was  marked  by  that  fine  sense 
of  personal  rights  that  ever  characterized  the  man: 
"  I  do  not  make  a  practice  of  forcing  religious,  and 
especially  personally  religious,  conversation  upon 
those  whom  I  meet.  If  opportunity  presents  I 
avail  myself  of  it.  Medicine  loathed  does  little  good. 
I  can  do  better  to  get  acquainted,  learn  characters, 
histories,  opinions,  events,  and  thus,  when  interest 
is  awakened,  it  may  be  religiously  directed.  There 
is  a  just  horror  in  most  minds  of  official,  perfunctory 
love  and  its  manifestations.  Yesterday  I  called 
on  a  sick  man.  He  was  asleep  and  I  did  not  see 
him;  on  a  sick,  pious,  lonely,  poor  girl  and  found 
her  happy;  on  another  sick  man  without  hope, 
young,  from  thirty  to  forty,  intelligent,  genial, 
going  with  consumption.  I  became  interested 
in  him  and  he  in  me,  and  that  will  enable  me 
to  direct  him  religiously.  I  hope  he  may  be 
saved/' 

As  a  preacher,  Dr.  Pepper  was  not  of  the  popu- 
lar type,  but  to  all  thoughtful  and  sensitive  souls 
his  sermons,  delivered  with  glowing  but  restrained 
earnestness,  made  an  appeal  quite  singular.  It 
was  sometimes  remarked  by  those  accustomed  to  a 
more  sensational  style  of  preaching  that  his  sermons 
were  overintellectual,  but  in  reality  they  were 


always  animated  by  intense,  if  finely  controlled, 
feeling.  The  following  beautiful  passage  from  a 
sermon  on  "  The  Heart's  Thirst  for  God  "  illustrates 
this  fine  emotional  quality,  and  incidentally  reflects 
the  life  of  a  man  whose  constant  study  was  the 
imitation  of  Christ:  "  We  find  in  Jesus  Christ  no 
lack  of  sensibility,  but  instead  its  richest  and  most 
copious  fullness.  Its  flow  was  free,  full,  and  perpetual. 
It  was  called  forth  by  all  its  proper  objects,  —  by 
nature,  mankind,  and  God.  To  each  of  these  objects 
singly,  and  to  all  conjointly,  it  was  duly  responsive. 
Jesus  was  delicately  and  profoundly  sympathetic 
with  nature  in  all  her  changing  moods,  as  his  dis- 
courses finely  show;  entered  with  loving  apprecia- 
tion into  all  the  experiences  of  men,  individual  and 
social,  material  and  spiritual,  showing  that  noth- 
ing pertaining  to  man  was  alien  to  Him;  and  was 
ever  in  closest  fellowship  with  the  eternal  God, 
His  Father,  in  whose  bosom  was  the  home  of 
His  soul,  and  in  whose  love  was  the  spring  of  His 
life. 

"  This  incessant  outflow  of  divine-human  sensi- 
bility gave  to  His  eye,  His  countenance,  His  voice, 
His  words,  His  conduct,  now  the  sweet  charm  of 
a  quite  infinite  attraction,  and  now  a  singular  and 
awful  majesty.  .  .  .  The  heart  of  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  magnet  of  the  rational  universe." 

On  Thanksgiving  Day,  1860,  he  was  married  to 
Annie  Grassie  of  Bolton,  the  sister  of  his  chum, 
herself  a  graduate  of  Mount  Holyoke.  Very 
beautiful  are  the  letters  which  record  that  love. 

[20] 


'  Bolton  is  a  word  which  to  my  eyes  is  surrounded 
by  a  halo  of  golden  light.  We  are  neither  of  us  very 
romantic  and  skylarky  in  our  temperament,  but  are 
we  not  both  susceptible  to  mellowing  influences  and 
twilight  feelings?  I  love  to  recall  my  former  visits 
to  Bolton.  There  was  a  depth  of  quiet  satisfaction 
enjoyed  in  these  visits  which  I  have  never  yet 
sounded  with  lead  and  line,  and  when  I  review  the 
days  I  re-enjoy  that  identical  unfathomableness. 
This  was  and  is  the  case,  even  when  and  where  surface 
winds  made  surface  waves  and  agitations." 

These  letters  are  joyous,  with  an  abounding  sense 
of  youth  and  of  fullness  of  life ;  playful,  with  the  merry 
abandon  of  a  light  heart.  Under  date  of  May  31, 
1859,  shortly  before  his  engagement,  he  writes  as 
follows:  "  You  may  remember  that  I  found  the 
birds  one  morning  singing  very  improper  songs,  for 
which  they  were  duly  reprimanded.  This  morning 
a  more  terrible  instance  of  depravity  came  to  my 
notice.  Two  good,  staid,  orthodox  robins  have 
come  to  a  tree  close  by  my  window,  attracted  by 
the  good  influence  here  and  the  sound  theology  of 
the  room,  and  laboriously  and  artfully  have  built 
their  nest  like  honest  people  as  they  are.  They 
have  gained  much  sympathy  by  their  consistent 
walk,  and  we  had  hoped  that  the  righteous  would 
be  prospered.  But  this  morning  as  I  first  looked 
out,  I  found  one  of  our  parishioners,  a  red  squirrel, 
one  of  a  very  large  family  living  here,  had  supposed 
that  the  minister  would,  of  course,  sleep  as  usual, 
and  he  be  unobserved  and  so  escape  undisciplined, 

[21] 


and  hence  he  wickedly  made  his  way  up  to  the  nest 
and  robbed,  stole,  pilfered,  thieved,  carried  away, 
while  the  good  honest  robins  manfully  defended 
their  house  and  home,  though  unsuccessfully.  Imag- 
ine the  consternation  of  the  thief  when,  on  my  rais- 
ing the  window,  he  found  himself  detected.  He  is  a 
ruined  man.  He  will  be  expelled  instanter.  He 
has  brought  disgrace,  scandal,  infamy  upon  '  our 
society/  Total  depravity,  alas!  I  would  not  report 
this  case  to  you,  only  as  you  are  a  firm  friend  of  our 
body,  and  are  well  qualified  to  give  advice  in  such 
matters.  Do  give  us  some  information  respecting 
the  kind  of  discipline  that  is  best  to  reclaim  the 
criminal. " 

On  July  15,  1859,  just  after  a  visit  at  Bolton,  and 
just  after  his  engagement,  he  writes  a  charming 
letter  from  which  the  following  are  excerpts: 

"  I  have  not  been  alone  since  I  left  Bolton,  not 
since  I  left  South  Acton.  The  same  one  who  went, 
or  rather,  came  with  me  to  that  place,  came  all  the 
way,  and  faithful  and  true  stays  a  real  presence,  a 
dear  companion,  a  rich  life-heart  treasure.  .  .  .  You 
were  standing  in  the  depot  door  when  I  saw  you  last. 
It  was  too  bad  for  you  to  take  so  long  a  drive  alone, 
and  all  for  my  careless  negligence,  but  you  know  how 
to  drive  and  I  trust  had  a  romantic  ride  home.  I 
know  you  were  in  no  great  torture  while  riding  to 
Acton.  Pray,  what  did  father  Grassie  say  at  noon? 
What  jokes  were  perpetrated  at  our,  or  my,  expense, 
at  the  dinner  table?  And  Tom,  did  he  laugh  at 
you  or  us?  And  did  you  parry  his  blows  heroically, 

[22] 


and  defend  yourself  and  the  cause,  and  give  him  to 
know  that  we  were  well  aware  where  our  own  interests 
lay,  that  we  knew  what  we  were  about,  and  all  that? 

"  I  wish  I  had  been  there  to  engage  in  the  conflict 
with  you  and  defend  with  you  our  good  and  right- 
eous cause,  while  yet  I  have  no  fears  for  it,  while  in 
your  hands.  Let  them  know  that  we  had  a  good  ride, 
and  a  good  ride  is  a  very  good  thing  and  not  at  all 
to  be  despised.  A  very  good  ride  we  had,  and  I 
am  glad  —  are  you?  I  trust  that  you  had  a  rest, 
a  good,  sound,  long,  sweet  sleep  just  after  dinner, 
for  you  must  have  been  prodigiously  tired.  You  had 
been  very  imprudent  —  very  imprudent.  Late 
hours,  loss  of  sleep,  long  walks,  long  rides,  long 
talks,  these  had  been  too  frequent.  You  must  not 
do  such  things,  Annie;  you  will  ruin  your  constitu- 
tion. I  hope  you  are  reforming;  keep  clear  of  temp- 
tations to  such  things.  .  .  . 

1  I  was  standing  in  the  door  of  that  poor  old  milk 
car  when  you  saw  me  last.  I  found  it  a  cool,  com- 
fortable place,  for  the  car  had  abundance  of  ice  in  it, 
to  keep  the  milk  and  water  frigid,  and  that  proved 
amply  sufficient  to  make  even  Pepper  cool,  strange 
and  unnatural  as  it  may  seem,  while  a  good  arm- 
chair and  a  newspaper  rendered  my  lot  easy  beyond 
the  common  lot  of  mortals,  so  that  I  was  not  anxious 
to  take  the  passenger  car  at  Concord,  but  kept  my 
position.  I  advise  you,  Annie,  if  you  ever  have  to 
travel  on  the  cars  alone,  to  take  care  and  be  left  by  the 
regular  train,  that  you  may  enjoy  the  aristocratic 
luxury  of  a  stateroom  armchair  and  accompanying 

[23] 


conveniences  of  a  migratory  lacteal  palace.  It  is 
exquisitely  exquisite;  in  fact,  almost  tolerable. 
Well,  that  is  a  long  —  short  story. 

"  Arrived  at  Waltham,  I  dismounted  from  my 
lofty  nabobical  position  to  the  vulgar  earth  trod  by 
vulgar  feet,  and,  leisurely  moving  along  the  street, 
surveyed  the  wonders  of  the  town,  looking  compla- 
cently upon  the  fine  Baptist  Church  where  I  preached 
some  months  since,  and,  with  an  unpleasant  reflec- 
tion upon  my  poor  service  there,  went  on,  wondering 
when  the  omnibus  would  start  for  Watertown,  and 
soon  came  in  sight  of  it.  O,  alas!  Tantalian  misery! 
only  to  see  it  move  away,  leaving  '  I  'hind/  the 
unhappy  victim  of  a  strange  predestination  to 
trudge  on  foot  for  almost  five  weary  miles.  It  was 
toe  bad;  wasn't  it,  Annie?  But  how  I  slept  that 
afternoon!  O,  all  ye  little  gods  and  goddesses,  did 
you  ever!  My  room,  my  bed,  my  home,  all  hail! 
Here  is  the  place  for  repose,  here  is  the  place  for 
thought,  here  is  the  place  for  enjoyment,  here  is  the 
place  for  life,  here  is  the  place  for  me.  .  .  . 

"  Perhaps  you  are  tired  of  reading,  but  I  have  a 
new  pen  and  it  feels  quite  ambitious  to  excel  all 
former  pens,  and,  as  I  wish  to  give  it  a  fair  chance, 
I  let  it  run  on.  It  really  does  finely  for  one  so 
inexperienced.  But  it  must  be  a  little  cautious  and 
not  be  too  prolix,  or  I  will  tumble  it  out  of  the  window 
and  take  one  that  is  more  wary  and  cool-blooded. 
Moderation  is  the  grand  conservative  principle 
of  the  union  —  I  mean  the  universe  —  and  woe  to 
the  little  black  tongue  that  has  it  not.  Woe  to  the 

[24] 


chattering,  foolish  bit  of  steel  that  rattles  on  and 
clatters  on  and  dashes  on,  pouring  out  Stygian 
streams  of  black  venom  in  untraceable  whirls  of 
inextricable  nonsense." 

Thus  ardent  with  the  ardency  of  youth,  thus 
romantic  with  its  sweet  romance,  thus  tender  with 
a  lyrical  tenderness,  these  letters  yet  show  how 
gravely  and  with  what  an  eye  to  God's  purposes 
this  union  was  formed:  "We  have  from  the  first 
believed  in  the  fact  —  truly  a  fact  —  that  our 
union  was  secured  under  the  guidance  of  the  great 
Father  who  cares  for  us  both  alike.  At  times  this 
thought  has  been  to  us  the  source  of  a  deep,  strong 
joy,  and  in  it  we  have  found  abundant  promise  of 
the  highest  good  in  our  union,  which  has  brightened 
the  prospect  of  the  future  and  been  to  us  a  great 
hope."  Who  that  ever  knew  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Pepper 
could  fail  to  recognize  the  correctness  of  that  proph- 
ecy in  the  fulfillment  of  that  hope! 

In  these  early  letters  one  theme  is  frequently 
touched  upon  that  is  met  again  and  again  in  later 
correspondence  —  in  fact,  a  theme  that  never  seemed 
long  to  be  absent  from  his  thoughts — ,  the  con- 
sciousness of  his  own  spiritual  imperfections  and 
the  longing  for  a  more  complete  conformity  to 
Christ.  In  1860  he  wrote:  "  My  hope  is  that  the 
ideal  man  which  you  have  seen  in  me,  the  admirable 
statue  which,  artistlike,  you  have  seen  in  the  shape- 
less, uncouth  marble  may,  by  the  chiseling  of  divine 
Providence,  at  length  stand  before  you  visible,  not 
alone  to  the  eye  of  imagination,  but  to  the  eye  of 

[25] 


sense,  the  realization  of  your  hopes,  the  actual  ob- 
ject of  your  love."  In  1867  he  wrote:  "  I  think  any 
fortune  is  good  fortune  if  we  inquire  for  God's  will 
till  we  find  and  do  it.  I  wish  to  be  willing  to  par- 
take of  Christ's  sufferings  as  well  as  of  life's  com- 
forts, to  say  with  him,  when  he  entered  into  his 
profound  woe,  and  mysterious  horror  of  death  and 
death  of  horror,  l  Not  my  will,  but  Thine  be  done/ 
Far  enough  have  I  been,  and  still  am,  from  that 
identification  with  God,  but  I  have  glances  at  the 
beauty  of  the  spirit,  my  eyes  sometimes  are  turned 
with  longing  toward  it,  indeed  I  think  I  am  increas- 
ingly conscious  of  a  permanent  movement  of  spirit 
that  way, —  held  in  check  and  often  well-nigh  over- 
come by  rude  and  rampant  earthliness  of  disposition, 
but  by  the  grace  of  God  I  hope  to  triumph,  triumph 
with  you,  my  darling,  in  God  our  Saviour."  In 
1902  he  wrote,  "  One  life  nearly  gone,  and  I  still  so 
far  from  Christ."  So  far  from  Christ!  and  yet,  when 
six  little  schoolboys  in  Waterville  were  asked  to 
write,  without  consultation,  the  name  of  the  best 
man  they  had  ever  known,  all  wrote  the  name  of 
Dr.  Pepper. 

The  issues  of  the  Civil  War  stirred  him  very 
deeply  and,  although  not  physically  qualified  to 
serve,  he  inspired  with  his  patriotism  the  goodly 
company  of  young  Colby  men  who  laid  aside  Horace 
and  Euclid  to  take  up  knapsack  and  rifle. 

During  the  winter  of  1863-4,  ne  served  for  six 
weeks,  the  regular  period  for  volunteer  service,  under 
the  Christian  Commission  in  Alexandria,  Virginia, 

[26] 


doing  pastoral  work  among  the  soldiers.  It  is  worth 
while  to  follow  him  in  a  day's  work  there,  worth 
while  for  the  light  that  it  throws  on  the  man,  and 
historically  worth  while  as  well: 

"  My  dear  Wife: 

I  am  glad  to  sit  down  now  for  a  minute  before  our 
little  evening  soldiers'  prayer  meeting  and  write  you 
a  word,  tell  you  that  I  love  you  heartily,  long  to 
meet  and  greet  you  when  God  will,  bear  you  on  my 
heart  always.     Hope  you  are  well,  happy,  trustful, 
loving   and    serving    God,  —  making    sunshine    for 
others.     This  is  in  many  respects  a  rough  world  and 
I  have  sometimes  feared  that  my  spirits  would  be 
soured  and  darkened,  but  I  hope  we  shall  be  kept 
pure,  and  so  glad. 

II  And  now,  darling,  I  will  give  you  the  history  of 
the  day.     After  writing  you  yesterday,  I  filled  my 
haversack  with   books,  etc.,  and  after  tea  started 
out  in  the  rain,  the  mist,  and  the  blackness  to  go 
nearly  a  mile  to  Co.  F.,  26  Michigan,  for  a  meeting. 
It  was  a  rough,  bad  way  to  get  there,  but  we  had 
our  meeting  in  the  barracks,  a  long  room  with  a 
board  seat  running  the  whole  length  of  one  side,  and 
on  the  other  the  berths  and  a  seat,  rude  enough  you 
may  guess.     The  Captain  and  Lieutenant  came  in 
and  a  very  excellent  meeting  we  had.     Went  from 
that  place  at  8  to  the  Soldiers'  Rest,  where  hundreds 
of  volunteers  just  from  New  York  City  were  spending 
the  night.     It  is  a  great   place  to  operate  at  such 
a  time,  —  all   nationalities  and  all  characters  just 

[27] 


from  home,  with  none  of  the  peculiar  modifying, 
and  I  may  say,  in  a  sense,  the  elevating  influences  of 
associated  soldier  life.  Father  Taylor  and  Brother 
Briggs  had  been  in  during  the  day  and  collected  two 
thousand  dollars  of  them  and  sent  it  on  by  express  to 
their  friends.  But  there  had  been  gambling  and 
theft  before  them,  and  some  poor  fellows  had  suffered 
in  consequence.  I  worked  an  hour  in  one  of  the 
rooms,  and  by  that  time  most  of  them  were  stretched 
on  the  hard  floor  for  rest,  tired  by  the  day's 
duties. 

"  This  morning  I  went  with  Uncle  John  (Vassar) 
with  a  haversack  full  of  testaments  and  some  tracts, 
and  oh,  how  destitute  they  seem  of  the  word  of  life! 
My  stock  was  soon  gone,  and  home  we  went  and 
this  time  filled  two  haversacks,  which  Uncle  John 
left  me  to  distribute  alone,  which  I  did,  —  German 
and  English,  and  had  not  enough  even  then. 

"  Two  little  incidents  occurred  worth  mentioning 
to  you.  A  man,  Place  by  name,  semi-intoxicated, 
in  answer  to  my  question  how  he  found  himself, 
said,  '  I  am  feeling  pretty  bad.  I  have  got  into  this 
by  getting  drunk,  was  in  the  navy,  have  lost  most 
of  my  money.  My  brother-in-law  is  a  Methodist 
minister  in  Providence,  R.  I.;  wish  you  would  write 
him  to  get  my  price  money  from  Reuben  Vose, 
69  Wall  Street,  N.  Y.'  I  tried  to  have  him  take  a 
testament,  but  no,  and  I  gave  him  some  advice 
which  was  as  wind  against  a  rock. 

11  The  other  incident,  funny  enough,  serio-comic, 
was  a  military  arrest  of  your  humble  servant,  and 

[28] 


consignment  to  the  guardhouse.  As  my  work  of 
distribution  was  about  ended,  a  Lieutenant,  with 
dangling  sword,  came  up  with  official  bustle  and 
dignity,  saying,  '  By  what  authority,  sir,  are  you 
in  this  room?  '  'Oh,  none  in  particular,  sir;  the 
guard  allowed  me  to  pass  in/  '  Orderly,  take  this 
man  and  report  to  so  and  so  at  the  guardhouse/ 
So  with  true  military  dignity,  kinglike,  I  marched 
with  my  servant  to  said  place  and  officer,  asking  him 
meanwhile  what  all  this  meant.  He  said  he  didn't 
know,  'twas  something  incomprehensible  to  him. 
Come  to  the  officer  in  the  guardhouse,  said  he, 
'  What  does  this  mean?  '  '  Don't  know,  sir,  it 
was  done  so  and  so.'  'I  don't  understand  it. 
What  did  the  Lieutenant  mean?  Go  and  tell  him 
to  come  here  at  once  and  explain  this  matter.'  Off 
went  my  escort,  leaving  me  in  very  pleasant  company, 
whom  I  blessed  with  edifying  conversation  and  the 
gift  of  a  few  tracts.  The  officer  grew  uneasy.  Said 
he,  '  If  that  Lieutenant  has  any  charge  to  prefer  — 
he  had  better  hurry  up.'  Soon  official  dignity 
appears  in  the  distance,  coming  with  somewhat 
rapid  step  and  dangling  sword.  He  advances. 
His  awful  presence  approaches.  His  sublime  dig- 
nity draws  near.  He  has  reached  the  door  and 
your  awe-struck,  trembling,  terrified,  pallid,  dumb- 
founded husband  is  face  to  face  with  majestic 
officiality.  Who  can  endure  —  awful  suspense! 
But  lo!  miracle  of  miracles,  instead  of  being  blasted 
and  blown  up  by  the  breath  of  terrific  indignation 
and  scathing  malediction,  a  dignified  and  significant 

[29] 


bow  of  the  terrific  to  your  astonished  humble,  and 
the  words  —  are  my  ears  true  in  hearing?  —  '  I 
beg  your  pardon,  sir,  I  am  sure  I  do.  I  am  very 
sorry  this  thing  has  happened,  indeed  I  am.  I  was 
told  that  some  one  was  in  the  room  peddling  —  they 
come  in  and  sell  citizen's  clothes  — ,  and  I  took  you 
to  be  the  one  and  so  made  no  inquiry.  Of  course 
we  intend  to  furnish  you  with  all  possible  facilities 
in  your  work.  I  am  very  sorry  indeed  for  this/ 
1  Oh,  sir,  it's  all  right.  It  will  pass  for  a  good  joke. 
I  didn't  understand  it,  sir,  but  of  course  had  no  feel- 
ing about  it.  Good  day,  sir.'  There,  wasn't  that 
a  joke,  a  military  experience.  Oh  but,  dear,  I  am 
working  somewhat  for  the  men,  and  the  Lord  I 
think  does  help  and  bless  me.  Brother  Moss 
leaves  on  Wednesday  and  then  I  have  the  charge 
of  the  great  work.  I  hope  to  have  divine  strength. 

Good  night,  dear, 

Your  own  George." 

His  resemblance  to  Lincoln  at  that  time  was  so 
striking  that  he  was  frequently  mistaken  for  the 
President.  The  resemblance,  indeed,  was  more  than 
merely  physical;  they  were  alike  in  the  beautiful 
gentleness  of  character,  in  their  quiet  self-possession, 
in  their  quaint  humor,  in  the  profound  simplicity 
of  their  lives.  Upon  the  death  of  the  President, 
Mr.  Pepper  preached  an  impassioned  sermon.  So 
vivid  was  the  impression  made  by  this  sermon  that 
he  was  asked  to  preach  it  again  on  the  occasion 
of  the  Lincoln  centenary.  There  needed  not  the 

[30] 


change  of  sentence  or  word,  so  well  had  he  divined 
the  spirit  of  the  great  martyr. 

In  1865  Dr.  Pepper  was  called  to  the  chair  of 
Church  History  in  Newton.  Dr.  Hovey  visited  him 
in  August,  that  the  two  friends  might  discuss  the 
proposal,  and,  as  a  result,  Dr.  Pepper  came  to  feel 
that  it  was  now  his  duty  to  accept.  Not  the  least 
of  the  attractions  at  Newton  was  the  companion- 
ship of  Dr.  Hovey,  the  man  whom  he  loved  most 
dearly  of  the  friends  of  middle  life.  This  noble 
friendship,  so  generous,  so  self-effacing,  was  a  trib- 
ute to  each  of  them. 

Dr.  Pepper  first  mentions  his  friend  in  a  letter  of 
May  7,  1859:  "  Now  for  the  Professor.  His  name 
is  Hovey  —  Alvah  Hovey  — ,  a  thick,  not  tall,  black- 
haired,  slow-motioned  man;  warm-hearted,  clear- 
headed, pious  man.  He  is  a  true  friend  to  me  and 
I  love  him.  I  know  him  to  be  a  true  friend.  I 
wonder  why  he  is!  " 

Dr.  Pepper  could  never  mention  Dr.  Hovey 
without  manifest  enthusiasm,  and  the  society  of  his 
friend  put  him  into  high  good  humor.  On  the 
Sunday  of  the  visit  alluded  to  above,  Dr.  Pepper 
wrote  to  his  wife,  '  The  ponderous  Prof.  Hovey 
is  still  silent  in  his  room  and  probably  horizontal 

in  posture."  On  the  following  day  he  wrote,  "  H 

preached  at  the  Congregational  house  yesterday. 
I  judge  that  some,  indeed  many,  went  to  hear  him 
yesterday  instead  of  Hovey,  —  the  child's  mistake: 
it  is  the  thunder  that  splits  trees  and  knocks  down 
men  and  chimneys,  not  the  lightning.  Well,  all 

[31] 


things  adjust  themselves;  I  was  glad  to  have  present 
only  such  as  would  appreciate  that  very  great  and 
lovely  man." 

It  was  characteristic  of  Dr.  Pepper  that  he  kept 
his  friendships  through  life,  and  upon  the  resignation 
of  Dr.  Hovey  over  forty  years  later,  he  spoke  with 
the  same  hearty  affection  and  admiration.  On  that 
occasion  he  concluded  his  magnanimous  tribute 
with  these  words  of  glowing  praise:  "  And  so,  at 
this  time,  on  this  great  and  grand  anniversary,  with 
the  beautiful  seminary  hill  crowned  with  buildings 
adequate  and  adapted  for  their  purposes,  with  endow- 
ment and  every  material  equipment  far  advanced, 
with  the  curriculum  immensely  enriched,  with  a 
yearly  succession  of  graduating  classes  larger  by 
far  and  more  thoroughly  educated  than  any  before, 
with  the  name  and  fame  and  influence  of  Newton 
recognized  everywhere  as  a  glory  to  the  denomina- 
tion, all  unmistakably  due  in  large  measure  to  the 
quiet,  steady,  strong,  wise  management  and  influence 
of  the  one  man  whose  name  we  love  and  venerate, 
we  say  what  we  do  not  need  to  say,  that  as  friends 
and  sons  of  Newton,  there  is  nothing  for  which 
we  have  more  reason  to  be  thankful  than  that 
God  gave  to  Newton  as  President  our  beloved  Alvah 
Hovey." 

After  two  years  at  Newton,  Dr.  Pepper  accepted 
the  chair  of  Systematic  Theology  in  the  new  Crozer 
Theological  Seminary,  thus  turning  to  a  subject 
more  congenial  to  his  philosophical  type  of  mind. 
For  fifteen  years  he  held  this  position,  and  played 

[32] 


a  leading  part  in  directing  the  current  of  Baptist 
thought.  His  essays  at  this  time,  which  are  numer- 
ous, are  upon  such  subjects  as  "  Baptist  Doctrine 
and  the  Pulpit/'  "  The  Mutual  Relation  of  Bap- 
tism and  Communion,"  '  The  First  Resurrection," 
'  The  School  and  the  Church."  The  fundamental 
ideas  of  his  theology  are  packed  into  the  follow- 
ing graphic  sentences:  "  The  world  is  the  dwelling 
place  of  man,  man's  home.  It  is  a  great,  grand, 
beautiful,  wonderful  house.  But  it  neither  is  nor 
can  become  our  home.  And  if  atheistic  scientists 
could  succeed  in  their  attempts  to  warn  Almighty 
God  off  these  premises,  and  to  banish  him  from  the 
universe,  the  human  heart  would  soon  find  and  feel 
itself  an  orphan  —  homeless,  a  prisoner  imprisoned, 
around  it  only  the  cold  masonry  of  natural  law,  of 
physical  force,  eternally  blind,  deaf,  dead,  immovable. 
The  universe  is  our  home  while  the  presence  of  the 
holy,  heavenly,  eternal  Father  fills  it,  and  the  child 
everywhere  feels  that  presence.  Lose  this  and  it 
ceases  to  be  home.  God  knew  and  knows  that  no 
man  can  climb  up  into  the  heaven  of  heavens  to  his 
secret  dwelling  place  on  the  ladder  of  his  own  good 
works,  or  on  the  stairway  of  the  stars,  and  so  he 
came  down  by  his  Spirit  and  his  Son,  speaking  to  us 
face  to  face,  making  his  presence  to  shine  upon  us 
through  all  the  pages  of  holy  writ,  and  there  joining 
his  life  to  ours  for  time  and  for  eternity." 

His  conception  of  the  genius  of  the  Baptist  Church 
as  the  faithful  embodiment  of  the  ideals  of  the 
Apostolic  Church,  as  a  matchless  synthesis  of 

[33] 


individualism  and   of  communism  in  the  Christian 
life,  is  presented  in  the  following: 

'  The  prominence  given  by  Christianity  to  the 
individual  element  in  man  can  escape  no  careful 
observer.  It  appears  in  the  emphasis  laid  upon  the 
worth  of  a  single  soul,  and  upon  the  exclusive,  un- 
divided responsibility  of  each  soul  for  itself;  in  the 
doctrine  of  the  final  judgment,  where  each  shall  give 
account  of  himself  to  God,  and  be  judged  for  his  own 
deeds  only;  in  its  doctrine  of  the  new  birth,  in  which 
one  by  one  God  gathers  his  elect;  in  its  doctrine 
of  repentance  and  faith,  which  are  never  the  acts  of 
a  corporate  community;  in  its  doctrine  of  walk  with 
God  in  personal  communion  and  personal  service. 
The  same  prominence  is  given  to  the  individual  in 
the  forms  of  speech  by  which  inspiration  addresses 
men,  speaking  as  it  does  either  singly  to  each  by 
himself,  or  to  the  many  as  made  up  of  individuals. 
Thus  does  revelation  address  the  conscience  which 
exists  and  acts  only  in  separate  personalities.  And 
most  clearly  Baptist  doctrine  presents  the  church  of 
Jesus  Christ  as  a  matchless  provision  for  the  Chris- 
tian life  in  this  element  of  it,  because  it  is  also  a  perfect 
embodiment  and  expression  of  it.  The  general  con- 
stitution of  the  church  leaves  in  its  integrity,  and 
stimulates  to  activity,  that  general  sense  of  immediate 
personal  responsibility  to  God  only,  as  Sovereign 
Head,  which  is  the  very  foundation  of  right  religious 
development,  while  the  ordinances,  in  their  nature, 
their  design,  and  their  administration,  each  separately 
and  both  conjointly  make  their  demand  first  and 

[34] 


fundamentally  upon  the  individual.  But  holy  Scrip- 
ture also  and  not  less  brings  to  its  rights  the  social 
nature  of  man.  Consider  that  its  great  law  is  the 
law  of  love,  and  so  of  communion,  fellowship,  inter- 
course, society ;  and  that  the  headship  of  Jesus  Christ 
involves  the  brotherhood  of  his  disciples.  And  so 
the  great  burden  of  the  intercessory  prayer  is  for 
the  realized  and  completed  oneness  of  Christians, 
and  the  final  apocalypse  of  heaven  presents  it  as  a 
city,  whose  social  and  corporate  life  is  so  perfect  that 
all  voices,  and  sounds,  and  movements,  and  heart- 
beats, and  breathings,  and  most  silent  secret  musings, 
flow  and  mingle  and  commingle  and  harmonize 
together  as  a  divine  song,  eternally  upborne  in  an 
airy  flood  of  music,  enrapturing  even  to  Jehovah's 
ear.  Now  were  it  true,  as  has  been  sometimes 
alleged,  that  the  Baptist  theory  of  the  Church  makes 
individualism  supreme,  to  the  detriment  and  even 
destruction  of  corporate  life,  we  should  scarcely 
need  another  argument  to  show  that  the  theory, 
whatever  its  favoring  evidences,  is  false,  for  it  is 
antecedently  certain  that  Jesus  could  not  have 
instituted  such  a  subversion  of  his  own  kingdom. 
It  is  true  that  the  Baptist  theory  presents  little  of 
merely  external  organization.  It  does  not  provide 
an  elaborate  system  of  rules,  which  shall  serve  as 
hoops  to  hold  together  the  vessel  against  all  internal 
pressure  outward.  It  is  no  system  of  cooperage. 
Were  it  such,  it  would  be  thereby  convicted  of 
spuriousness,  for  God's  people  are  bound  together 
by  inward  bonds  alone,  which  inwardly  constrain, 

[35] 


not  outwardly  compel.  And  so  when  this  inward 
constraint  of  love  fails,  the  greater  of  readiness  of 
separation  the  better,  the  more  of  obstruction  to 
separation  the  worse.  The  sooner  a  body  dissolves 
after  its  vital  principle  has  failed,  the  better.  The 
fellowship  of  saints  is  a  fellowship  of  heart,  and  an 
embodiment  must  so  present  it.  The  simplicity  of 
organization,  therefore,  if  organization  we  call  it, 
which  characterized  the  apostolic  churches,  and 
characterizes  Baptist  churches,  was  not  something 
accidental  and  temporary,  arising  not  from  a  perma- 
nent principle  of  the  divine  life  but  from  a  transient 
impossibility  of  expressing  the  principle,  but  instead 
it  was  the  fit  and  full  realization  of  the  inmost  and 
abiding  nature  of  that  life.  In  these  churches,  the 
apostolic  and  Baptist,  communion  the  most  close 
and  tender  goes  hand  in  hand  with  individualism, 
from  the  first  step  to  the  last,  though  always  recogniz- 
ing the  natural  antecedency  of  individualism,  and 
the  impossibility  of  a  genuine  fellowship  without 
such  antecedency.  Thus  the  command  to  be  bap- 
tized is  addressed  to  him  to  whom  baptism  must  be 
administered,  but  that  command  is  conjoined  with 
the  command,  Go  ye  and  baptize.  The  former 
implies  the  latter,  and  the  latter  must  reverence  the 
former.  There  is  communion  of  the  receiving  with 
the  receiver  in  the  reception,  while  in  the  coordinate 
and  completing  ordinance  so  manifest  is  the  fellow- 
ship that  its  very  name  is  the  Communion.  Both 
ordinances,  it  is  true,  relate  immediately  and  chiefly 
to  Jesus,  for  into  him  is  the  believer  baptized,  and 

[36] 


with  him  is  the  communion,  but  none  the  less  truly 
are  we  baptized  into  the  body  and  partake  of  '  the 
one  loaf.'  And  as  these  ordinances  set  forth  the  sole 
leadership  of  the  Lord,  and  the  common  life  of  his 
saints,  so  do  that  sole  leadership  and  that  common 
life  come  to  fullest  recognition  in  the  whole  theory 
of  church  order  and  practice.  No  human  headship 
or  legislation,  judicial  or  executive,  is  recognized  or 
allowed,  while  the  very  existence,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  growth  and  conquests  of  the  Church  or  churches, 
implies  hearty  and  general  cooperation.  And  if  we 
turn  from  the  testimony  of  Scripture  and  the  nature 
of  Christianity  to  the  facts  of  history,  an  impartial 
view  can  hardly  fail  to  give  full  scope  to  the  social 
element  of  Christian  life." 

The  rite  of  baptism  was  to  him  no  mere  objective 
formula,  no  mere  external  requirement,  no  mere  test 
of  obedience  and  passport  to  membership  in  the 
Church  of  Christ,  but  a  beautiful  and  mystic  symbol, 
fraught  with  the  sweetest  thoughts.  It  is  interesting 
to  see  how  much  of  that  mystical  passion  which 
endears  to  us  the  expression  of  medieval  saint  or 
artist  was  thus  present  in  the  religious  thought  of  a 
man  apparently  so  far  removed  from  the  creed  and 
traditions  of  the  Catholic  Church.  A  discussion  of 
baptism,  contributed  to  a  manual  of  the  Church,  is 
introduced  in  the  following  noble  words:  "  But  to 
me  it  has  fallen  to  address  you  concerning  the  rite 
known  as  baptism.  And  is  not  baptism  an  exter- 
nality? It  is,  and  it  is  not.  It  is;  but  it  is  also  more. 
It  is  an  externality,  as  human  language  is.  The 

[37] 


words  which  we  utter  —  what  are  they  but  vibrations 
in  the  air,  caused  by  certain  movements  of  the  vocal 
organs?  These  words  written  —  what  are  they 
but  forms  traced  in  ink  upon  paper  for  the  eye? 
The  highest  attainment  of  language  in  discourse  — 
is  it  anything  more  than  combinations  of  these  words? 
Is  not  language,  then,  an  externality?  What  is  it 
in  our  galleries  of  art  which  draws  to  them  the  sons 
of  genius  and  the  daughters  of  taste,  and  there  holds 
them  charmed  and  enchained?  Do  you  say  it  is  the 
pictures  and  statues,  creations  of  immortal  mind? 
But  what  are  pictures  but  paint  upon  canvas?  And 
what  are  statues  but  marble  quarried  and  chiseled? 
And  surely  paint  and  marble  are  external  and  ma- 
terial things.  Many  a  strong  man  in  our  army  during 
the  last  four  years,  in  hours  of  crisis  and  encounter 
has  been  thrilled  with  intensest  enthusiasm  as  his 
eyes  have  seen,  waving  above  the  embattled  host 
and  moving  toward  the  rebel  array,  a  certain  old, 
familiar,  starred  and  striped  flag,  and  in  that 
inspiration  has  been  a  courage  which  mocked  at 
fear  and  courted  death.  There  is  no  American 
heart  which  has  not  shared  this  noble  enthusiasm, 
within  which  the  sight  and  even  thought  of  our  flag 
has  not  kindled  a  glow  of  patriotic  emotion,  and 
wakened  all  its  latent  poetry.  But  that  flag,  lauded, 
loved,  and  sung, —  what  is  it  but  a  piece  of  bunting, 
red,  white,  and  blue?  Far  enough  that,  surely,  from 
the  spiritual.  Language  an  externality!  Yes,  save 
when  charged  and  vitalized  with  human  thought  and 
human  emotion.  Then  it  is  life  and  spirit.  The 

[38] 


statue  and  the  painting,  when  embodying  great 
ideals,  have  ceased  to  be  material.  Our  flag,  as 
symbol  of  national  character,  national  history, 
national  all,  is  no  longer  a  piece  of  bunting,  but  a 
glory,  almost  a  protecting  divinity.  Baptism,  which, 
viewed  in  one  way,  is  baldly  outward,  a  mere  rite 
and  ceremony,  viewed  otherwise  and  truly,  is  at  once 
a  language  intensely  charged  with  God's  richest 
thought  and  sweetest  affection;  an  incarnation  of 
our  Redeemer's  fondest,  brightest  ideal;  and  the 
symbol  of  all  that  makes  existence  glorious.  We 
are  not,  therefore,  led  away  from  the  central,  moving 
realities  of  our  holy  religion  by  a  discussion  of  bap- 
tism. We  rather  stand  for  an  hour  in  the  presence 
of  that  form  which  best  reveals  to  the  eye  those 
realities,  and  most  naturally  and  effectually  leads 
to  them  our  spirits.  Most  unbecoming,  therefore, 
would  be  an  apology  for  speaking  to  you  upon  bap- 
tism. Most  unjust  to  you  would  be  the  suspicion 
that  you  would  not  listen  with  closest  attention 
to  whatever  would  place  the  subject  in  its  true 
light." 

Dr.  Pepper  had  little  sympathy  with  the  often- 
expressed  idea  that  it  makes  little  difference  what  one 
believes,  provided  that  his  heart  is  right.  He  held 
that  in  large  measure  what  we  believe  determines 
what  we  are,  and  he  could  accordingly  write  of  another 
sect:  "  If  they  are  right,  we  are  wrong.  Either  they, 
by  their  church  doctrine  and  practice,  or  we  by  ours, 
are  not  in  harmony  with  the  great  system  of  Christian 
truths  as  a  whole,  but  instead  have  a  hold  somewhat 

[39] 


that  is  spurious,  incongruous,  contradictory,  and 
therefore  obscuring  and  corrupting."  He  accord- 
ingly gave  himself  with  great  devotion  to  the  task  of 
inculcating  what  he  believed  to  be  correct  theological 
views  in  the  minds  of  his  students. 

The  formative  influence  which  he  exerted  in  shap- 
ing the  policies  and  determining  the  character  of 
the  new  seminary  may  be  gathered  from  the  memo- 
rial adopted  by  the  faculty  upon  his  death: 

"  In  view  of  the  death  on  January  3Oth,  1913,  of  the 
Rev.  George  Dana  Boardman  Pepper,  D.D.,  LL.D., 
the  Faculty  of  Crozer  Seminary  enter  upon  their 
records  the  following  minute: 

"  Dr.  Pepper  was  Professor  of  Systematic  Theol- 
ogy in  Crozer  from  its  opening  in  1868  until  he 
resigned  to  become  President  of  Colby  University 
in  1883  [1882].  During  these  first  fifteen  [fourteen] 
years  of  its  history  there  was  afforded  an  unusual 
opportunity  to  aid  in  determining  and  in  attaining 
the  ideal  of  the  Seminary.  No  man  on  the  faculty 
in  these  early  days  did  more  than  Dr.  Pepper  in 
helping  to  make  Crozer  an  inestimable  force  for  the 
advancement  of  the  cause  of  Christ.  His  naturally 
strong  intellectual  powers;  his  broad,  comprehensive 
grasp  of  theological  doctrines;  his  keen,  analytical 
insight  into  the  problems  that  confronted  him;  his 
exceeding  candor  and  fairness  in  considering  views 
that  were  opposed  to  his  own;  his  deep,  invincible, 
simple  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  his  Saviour,  and  his 
cordial,  unselfish,  sympathetic  friendship,  not  only 
made  all  who  knew  him  esteem  him,  and  those  who 

[40] 


knew  him  intimately  love  him,  but  especially  made 
an  indelible  impression  upon  the  thought  and  charac- 
ter of  those  who  were  privileged  to  be  his  pupils. 
In  the  memory  of  these  Dr.  Pepper  will  ever  remain 
an  object  of  mingled  reverence  and  love." 

In  1882,  Dr.  Pepper  was  called  to  the  Presidency 
of  Colby.  His  five  years  of  residence  in  Waterville 
had  endeared  him  to  many  of  the  alumni  and  friends 
of  the  college,  and  as  an  educational  theorist  he  was 
favorably  and  widely  known  by  his  essay  on  "  The 
School  and  the  Church,"  an  able  and  masterly  defence 
of  the  policy  of  the  church  school.  The  trustees 
felt  that  the  college  could  well  be  intrusted  to  a 
scholar  who  had  thus  wisely  defined  the  relation  of 
church  and  school:  l  This  shows  that  we  must 
keep  the  Church  in  the  schools.  We  must  continue 
for  the  next  century,  and  for  every  succeeding  cen- 
tury, to  do  what  our  fathers  of  the  closing  century 
have  done,  make  our  academies  and  colleges  centres 
of  gospel  light  as  well  as  of  general  culture,  turn  upon 
them  distinctly  religious  influence,  put  them  in 
charge  of  godly  men,  keep  them  in  charge  of  godly 
men,  keep  them  in  contact  with  the  Christian 
heart  of  the  Christian  brotherhood,  and  flood  them 
with  unceasing  prayers.  Doing  this,  these  institu- 
tions will  be  as  they  have  been,  the  safest  of  all 
places  for  our  children.  Failing  to  do  this,  they  must 
and  will  become  places  of  swarming  perils,  and  multi- 
tudinous ruin.  They  will  become  the  stronghold  of 
infidelity,  impiety,  and  atheism,  graduating  culti- 
vated sinners,  disciplined  heathen,  and  gigantic 


destroyers.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  this  both  has  been 
and  must  be.  Discipline  does  not  stand  to  piety  as 
identical  with  it,  as  a  form  of  it,  as  a  substitute  for 
it,  as  a  cause  producing  it,  or  even  as  immediately 
instrumental  to  it.  We  have  ventured  to  call  one's 
discipline  the  supplement  of  his  piety.  That  this 
somewhat  loosely,  but  correctly,  characterizes  the 
relation  may  perhaps  be  made  to  appear.  The 
Church  in  her  distinctive  function  is  the  immediate 
instrument  in  the  production  and  promotion  of 
piety.  This  is  her  high  prerogative,  divinely  conferred 
and  forever  inalienable.  The  Church  as  church  is 
God's  prophet,  speaking  for  him  to  man,  taking  and 
interpreting  his  word,  and  thus  serving  as  a  sort  of 
channel  for  the  communication  of  life  and  salvation. 
In  a  word  the  Church  gives  to  a  man  his  God.  So  also 
in  a  word  the  school  gives  to  a  man  himself.  It 
is  only  as  a  man  has  both,  his  God  and  himself, 
that  he  is  fully  a  man,  a  man  complete.  His  God 
is  his  chief  want,  the  want  of  all  wants,  the  need 
of  all  needs,  need  most  imperative.  Himself  is  also 
a  mighty  need,  second  only  to  his  need  of  God." 

The  inaugural  address  is  a  definition  and  defence 
of  the  liberal  arts  college  which  is  hardly  to  be  sur- 
passed, challenging  comparison  with  Newman's  fa- 
mous chapter  on  "  Knowledge  Viewed  in  Relation  to 
Learning  "  and  St.  Basil's  "  Address  to  Young  Men 
on  the  Right  Use  of  Greek  Literature."  In  the 
writer's  opinion  there  has  been  no  other  document 
written  in  America  which  discusses  the  subject  more 
ably,  a  document  which  ought  to  be  in  the  hands  of 

[42] 


every  teacher  who  is  endeavoring  to  maintain  the 
validity  of  the  historical  American  college. 

The  informing  life  of  a  college  is  thus  eloquently 
denned:  "  It  is  worth  our  while  to  pause  a  little 
and  fix  more  definitely  our  notion  of  a  college.  We 
speak  of  a  college  sometimes  as  impersonal,  and  some- 
times as  personal.  The  college  is  an  institution,  and 
also  a  cherishing  mother  —  is  it,  and  also  she.  Both 
views  are  literally  true,  and  both  conceptions  must 
unite  to  give  us  the  full  truth.  As  institution  solely, 
the  college  is  merely  instrument  or  tool,  which 
living  men  have  fashioned  to  be  used  by  living  men 
for  living  men, —  an  unthinking,  unfeeling,  non- 
willing,  soulless  thing,  consisting  of  charters,  and 
chartered  privileges,  and  laws,  and  endowments,  and 
real  estate,  and  all  that  and  all  that.  This  is  life- 
less provision  —  necessary,  invaluable,  but  by  itself 
powerless,  inoperative,  worthless.  This  neither 
loves  nor  is  loved.  Make  all  this  as  ample  and  per- 
fect as  you  will,  it  can  never  alone  become  and  be  a 
college.  For  a  college  there  must  be  a  personal  life, 
a  life  single,  indivisible,  continuous,  multiplex,  a 
life  consisting  of  a  solid  unity  of  individual  lives, 
each  fitting  and  filling  a  needed  place  in  the  great 
total  of  the  rounded  and  integral  college  life,  and  all 
incessantly,  untiringly,  harmoniously,  effectively, 
working  together  for  the  common  end.  The  college 
in  its  institutional  element  is  the  indispensable  form 
or  body  conditioning  the  existence,  the  action,  and  the 
sure  achievement  of  this  great  corporate,  personal 
life.  Without  such  embodiment  the  designed  work 

[43] 


of  such  a  life  never  was  done  and  never  will  be, 
because  without  the  embodiment  the  life  itself 
cannot  exist.  Into  this  institutional  life  enter  all  the 
lives  that  cooperate  in  making  the  college  what  it  is 
and  ought  to  be,  whether  outside  or  inside,  not  alone 
faculty  and  students,  not  alone  founders  and  trustees 
and  graduates,  but  friends  and  fellow-helpers,  one 
and  all,  in  the  denomination  and  out,  in  Maine  and 
everywhere  else.  On  this  personal  side  the  true 
college  has  wisdom  and  will,  works  and  wins,  loves 
and  is  loved,  is  indeed  a  mother  cherished  and  cher- 
ishing, proud  of  her  children,  and  the  pride  of  her 
children,  growing  beautiful  and  powerful  and  fruit- 
ful from  generation  to  generation,  from  century  to 
century." 

His  conception  of  what  the  faculty  of  a  college 
should  be  is  thus  expressed:  "A  second,  and,  if 
possible,  more  indispensable  condition  of  organic  life 
is  life  in  the  corps  of  instructors  and  the  course  of  in- 
struction. The  faculty  of  a  college  are  not  only  to 
be  the  faculty  but  also  to  have  the  faculty.  And,  too, 
it  is  faculty,  not  faculties,  a  unity  and  not  a  discord, 
unus  in  pluribus.  It  is  a  college  faculty,  having 
existence  for  the  college  and  its  legitimate  business, 
and  not  for  other  and  outside  ends.  It  is  faculty  of 
education  and  instruction,  not  simply  to  cram  words 
and  sentences  into  hollow  skulls,  as  dentists  hammer 
their  gold  or  baser  metal  into  our  hollow  teeth.  Nay, 
not  that,  but  to  make  the  mind,  direct  the  reason, 
and  give,  together,  truth  and  the  power  to  investi- 
gate and  use  it,  to  evoke  manhood  by  manly  power 


used  in  manly  ways,  in  the  classroom  and  out  of  it, 
incessantly  pouring  a  rounded  and  cultured  life  into 
the  lives  of  those  gathered  for  the  very  purpose  of 
receiving  it,  and  so  living  in  them  and  through  them 
in  others,  on  and  ever  on,  a  living  and  life-giving 
faculty,  living  and  acting  in  the  present,  for  the 
future,  fronting  and  moving  forward,  not  dwelling 
among  the  tombs  as  a  kind  of  corporate  old  mortality, 
with  no  destiny  but  to  make  legible  again  tombstone 
inscriptions,  half  of  them  worthless  when  made,  and 
all  of  them  worthless  or  worse  now,  —  not  thus 
of  the  past,  —  yet  not  unmindful  of  the  past,  drawing 
from  it  lessons  of  wisdom  for  future  guidance  and 
inspiration  to  do  and  achieve,  keeping  step  with  all 
progress  that  is  progress,  and  resisting  all  progress 
that  is  regress,  steady  and  sure  in  movement, 
like  the  earth  in  its  orbit,  like  the  stars  in  their 


courses." 


And  what  of  the  students,  a  question  that  is  so 
perplexing  educators  in  this  day  of  swelling,  not  to 
say  bursting,  enrollments:  "  A  third  condition  of 
organic  life  is  the  requisite  material  from  which  and 
in  which  to  form  it.  There  must  be  a  material  pre- 
pared for  such  fashioning, —  something  above  the 
condition  of  babyhood  and  childhood.  The  college 
is  not  a  kindergarten.  Disciplined  youth  must, 
then,  be  well  and  thoroughly  disciplined.  The 
college  cannot  be  an  academy  or  high  school,  nor 
do  the  work  of  academy  or  high  school.  Better 
ten  students  that  are  college  students  than  a  thousand 
amorphous  nondescripts.  It  must  have  students, — 

[45] 


youth  with  power  and  disposition  to  do  the  work  and 
receive  the  benefits  of  the  course.  A  college  is  not  a 
training  school  for  the  feeble-minded,  a  hospital  for 
the  sick,  a  retreat  for  the  lazy,  a  reform  school  for 
the  vicious,  a  jail  or  prison  for  criminals.  All  such 
characters  can  be  spared  from  the  college.  None 
such  are  welcome.  Any  such  that  creep  in  un- 
awares will  have  speedy  leave  of  absence  from 
Colby,  and  no  request  for  their  return.  If  there  is 
any  place  in  this  world  for  them  it  is  outside 
college  precincts." 

The  main  body  of  the  address  is  an  exposition  of 
liberal  education  as  possessing  the  three  fundamental 
characteristics  of  catholicity,  symmetry,  and  vitality ; 
a  catholicity  which  embraces  all  fundamental  fields 
of  thought;  not  leaving  it  to  the  student  to  choose 
merely  that  which  appeals  to  his  taste,  which  his 
leisure,  or  his  whim,  dictates,  as  was  then  so  fatally 
advocated  by  "  a  brilliant  reorganizer  (or  ought  we 
to  say  disintegrator)  ";  a  symmetry  which  develops 
the  whole  man,  not  forgetting,  as  was  too  often  done 
in  the  earlier  periods  of  American  education,  the 
physical  man,  since  it  was  not  the  true  "  badge  and 
glory  of  a  student  to  be  pale-faced,  hollow-cheeked, 
sunken-eyed,  '  lean  and  ill-favored/  like  the  kine 
of  Pharaoh,  a  perpendicular,  slightly  animated,  and 
very  insignificant  corpse,  as  though  a  huge  Corliss 
engine  could  be  run  at  full  power  on  a  scarecrow 
frame,  rocking  and  creaking  and  ready  to  tumble  to 
pieces; "  a  vitality  which  resides  in  living  men 
teaching  living  subjects  to  living  men. 

[46] 


The  keys  of  the  college  were  accepted  with  the 
following  words  of  quiet  strength,  grounded  in 
humility:  "  I  accept  from  your  hands  these  keys, 
the  office  which  they  signify,  the  sacred  trust  which 
the  office  constitutes,  the  duties,  responsibilities, 
sacrifices  of  the  office.  The  confidence  reposed  in 
me  and  expressed  to  me  by  you,  sir,  and  through 
you  by  the  Board  of  Trustees,  at  once  humbles  and 
encourages  me.  To  prove  that  it  has  not  been 
misplaced  will  be  my  constant  ambition  and  en- 
deavor. Still,  you  and  I  and  all  must  place  our  ulti- 
mate hope  not  in  man,  but  in  the  living  God.  To 
him  we  now  turn  our  eyes,  to  him  we  make  our  appeal 
for  blessing  and  success.  If  he  go  with  us,  well. 
If  he  go  not  with  us,  may  he  keep  us  from  going. 
That  he  will  bless  and  help  us  is  our  assured  con- 
viction and  our  vital  encouragement." 

That  the  temper  of  the  inaugural  was  the  temper 
of  President  Pepper's  administration,  no  one  ac- 
quainted with  the  history  of  the  college  will  question. 
For  seven  years  he  directed  its  activities  during  a 
period  of  substantial  growth.  It  was  one  of  the  most 
constructive  administrations  that  the  college  has 
enjoyed.  The  character  of  his  leadership  may  be 
gathered  from  the  tribute  of  the  eminent  scholar 
who  succeeded  him  in  the  Presidency:  "During  my 
seven  years  as  one  of  his  lieutenants,  his  magna- 
nimity was  the  quality  which  impressed  me  most. 
There  was  never  a  suspicion  of  the  disposition 
which  I  have  seen  in  so  many  more  than  average 
men,  to  be  fearful  that  his  own  merit  might  be  masked 

[47] 


by  the  merits  of  others.  It  was  impossible  to  asso- 
ciate with  him  the  idea  of  self-seeking.  A  more 
utterly  generous  spirit  I  have  never  known.  His 
purity  of  purpose  was  lighted  up  by  such  boundless 
kindliness  and  unfailing  cheer  that  he  was  constantly 
communicating  his  own  courage." 

But  the  strain  of  executive  work  proved  too  great, 
and,  although  he  had  assumed  the  Presidency  an 
apparently  strong  man,  he  left  it  in  1889  shattered 
in  mind  and  body. 

A  year  or  more  of  travel  at  home  and  abroad 
restored  him  to  a  measure  of  strength,  and  in  1891 
he  was  able  to  accept  the  pastorate  of  the  church  in 
Saco.  A  year  later,  he  was  recalled  to  Colby  to  fill 
the  newly  established  chair  of  Biblical  Literature. 
It  was  called,  indeed,  the  chair  of  Biblical  Literature, 
but  in  Dr.  Pepper's  characteristic  phrase  it  was  in 
reality  a  "  Professorship  of  Holes,"  as  courses  in 
Philosophy  and  Hebrew,  as  well  as  the  direction  of 
the  college  during  the  frequent  absences  of  President 
Butler,  were  assigned  to  him.  For  this  executive 
service  he  was  officially  denominated  Dean,  but  the 
title  was  little  to  his  fancy,  unassuming  man  that 
he  was,  —  as  little  as  the  accompanying  mortar 
board,  which  he  never  could  doff  without  drastic 
measures. 

These  were  happy  years  for  Dr.  Pepper,  as  he  was 
able  to  return  again  to  the  more  or  less  untroubled 
life  of  the  student,  and  had  leisure  for  the  enjoyment 
of  his  family  and  of  the  many-phased  social  life 
which  centered  in  the  home.  During  this  period 

[48] 


he  was  regularly  engaged  in  the  reviewing  of  theologi- 
cal works  for  the  Journal  of  American  Theology,  and 
was  involved  in  several  controversies.  So  broad  was 
his  scholarship,  so  keen  his  analysis,  so  rigorous  his 
logic,  that  he  was  an  opponent  to  be  feared.  His 
controversial  keenness,  and  incidentally  his  graphic, 
homely  power  of  telling  illustration,  may  be  popularly 
illustrated  in  his  reply  to  the  strictures  of  The 
Watchman  upon  the  occasion  of  the  request  of  the 
college  to  the  Legislature  for  aid,  incident  to  the 
loss  of  a  dormitory  by  fire:  "  But  The  Watchman, 
in  its  article  on  '  Religious  Liberty,'  assumes  what 
it  has  elsewhere  asserted,  that  schools  of  liberal  cul- 
ture, supported  predominantly  by  members  of  any 
given  denomination,  not  only  specially  benefit  each 
one  that  denomination  with  which  it  is  thus  con- 
nected, but  that  such  benefit  was  at  the  first  and 
from  the  first  intended.  It  is  urged  that  this  puts 
the  college  on  the  same  footing  as  the  theological 
school  as  to  state  aid.  But  does  it?  The  Shakers 
are  a  denomination  or  sect  with  a  very  definite 
religious  faith  and  practice.  They  have  a  commu- 
nity life,  and  for  the  advancement  of  their  denomina- 
tional interests  they  are  wont  to  cultivate  the  soil 
and  prepare  for  the  public  market  seeds  of  garden 
vegetables.  Let  us  suppose  what  is  perhaps  true, 
that  the  agricultural  department  of  the  national 
government  were  to  buy  a  part  or  even  all  of  its 
seeds  of  the  Shakers,  because  it  could  thus  get  for 
its  money  the  best  possible  and  the  most  of  that 
best,  would  the  great  principle  of  '  religious  liberty,' 

[49] 


and  '  the  involved  principle  of  the  separation  of 
church  and  state/  and  that  '  important  application  ' 
of  this  involved  principle  which  consists  in  '  the 
denial  of  the  right  of  the  state  to  use  the  power  of 
taxation  to  aid  any  class  of  believers/  be  then 
violated?  Will  the  editor  of  The  Watchman  head 
a  petition  to  the  President  of  the  United  States  to 
use  his  whole  influence  to  secure  the  passage  of  a 
law  by  Congress  prohibiting  the  use  of  government 
funds  for  the  purchase  of  seeds  from  Shakers,  in 
order  to  serve  the  glorious  inheritance  of  our  religious 
liberty?  That  Baptists  seek  and  find  a  denomina- 
tional advantage  in  supporting  schools  of  liberal 
culture  does  not  make  it  unfit  that  the  state  should 
contribute  to  that  general  culture. "  Though  so 
doughty  an  opponent,  the  gentleness  and  humility 
of  his  spirit  left  small  occasion  for  bitterness  or 
rancor.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  man  to  con- 
clude a  series  of  criticisms  of  an  important  theologi- 
cal work  with  the  reflection  that,  "  All  thought  and 
discussion  as  to  such  questions,  whether  by  men  or 
angels,  by  the  profoundest  man  or  the  sublimest 
archangel,  are,  and  must  be,  superficial.  We  may, 
therefore,  bear  with  patience  the  inevitable  super- 
ficiality of  each  other  and  be  '  tenderly  affectionate 
one  to  the  other/ ' 

Indeed,  his  attitude  toward  other  men,  whether 
he  approved  or  disapproved  of  their  conduct  or  their 
views,  was  ever  one  of  respect  and  consideration. 
This  was  not  so  much  an  expression  of  temperament, 
at  least  originally,  as  a  result  of  his  philosophy:  on 

[50] 


the  one  hand,  he  was  humble  because  he  measured 
himself  by  a  divine  standard ;  on  the  other,  he  had 
respect  for  every  human  being,  because,  however 
superficial  or  weak,  yet  made  in  the  image  of  God  and 
capable  of  infinite  attainment. 

In  1900,  his  failing  health  made  it  seem  best  for 
him  to  resign.  The  remaining  years  of  his  life  were 
spent  mainly  in  Waterville,  with  occasional  visits 
to  the  homes  of  his  children.  Feeling  that  his  own 
constructive  work  was  largely  done,  he  assisted  Mrs. 
Pepper  in  the  promotion  of  the  many  social,  civic, 
and  religious  interests  of  which  she  was  an  animating 
spirit.  His  last  public  appearance  was  at  the  Com- 
mencement dinner  of  1912,  when  he  was  given  an 
ovation.  Though  his  step  was  feeble,  and  though 
the  light  was  gone  from  his  eye,  friends  and  former 
students  saw  the  same  dignified  and  gracious  bearing 
as  of  old,  which  showed  how  ingrained  was  the  nobil- 
ity and  elevation  of  his  character. 

In  the  prime  of  life  he  had  written  as  follows: 
"  Wherever  the  Bible  goes,  there  springs  up  and  grows 
the  filial  trust  in  God  as  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ. 
There  is  heard  in  the  family  and  in  the  social  circle 
the  song  of  praise  and  of  hope,  from  hearts  full  of 
unspeakable  peace  and  joy.  The  voices  of  little 
children,  of  those  bowed  and  furrowed  with  age, 
and  of  all  between,  join  together  in  a  common  fellow- 
ship of  a  common  life  and  love.  And  there,  too, 
when  death  comes,  in  whatever  form,  the  eyes  of  the 
dying  have  in  them  a  light  not  of  earth,  and  death  is 
conquered  even  before  it  is  encountered,  for,  saith 

[51] 


Jesus,  '  Whosoever  liveth  and  believeth  on  me  shall 
never  die/  " 

This  passage  tells  the  story  of  his  death,  as  the 
story  of  much  of  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  did  not  die, 
but  awoke  to  renewed  strength  and  liberated  powers 
on  January  3Oth,  1913.  The  playfulness  which  soft- 
ened his  domestic  life  and  charmed  every  one  who 
knew  him  as  a  friend  was  present  to  the  last.  On 
the  day  of  his  death,  in  one  of  the  wakeful  moments, 
he  remarked  to  a  friend :  '  They  say  I  have  harden- 
ing of  the  arteries;  I  am  glad  it  is  not  hardening  of 
the  heart. " 

Dr.  Pepper  received  in  life  abundant  evidence  of 
the  esteem  in  which  he  was  held.  Friends  could  not 
conceal  their  admiration  of  his  brilliant  mind  and 
his  great  humanity,  and  colleges  vied  with  one 
another  in  honoring  themselves  by  bestowing  honor- 
ary degrees  upon  him.  Thus  he  received  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Divinity  from  Colby,  Amherst,  and 
Brown,  and  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  from  Colby 
and  Bucknell.  His  death  called  forth  tributes  of 
affection  and  praise  from  scores  of  friends,  from  men 
prominent  in  the  affairs  of  the  nation  or  conspicuous 
in  religious  and  educational  life,  as  well  as  from 
folk  in  humbler  station. 

Such,  in  brief  outline,  is  the  story  of  Dr.  Pepper's 
life,  with  primary  heed  to  his  professional  career. 
But  how  much  is  left  untold!  How  unsatisfying  to 
those  who  knew  him  as  a  friend,  who  enjoyed  his 
kindly  greeting,  his  quaint  wit,  the  light  of  his  in- 
comparable smile,  his  conversation,  pleasantly  flowing 

[52] 


like  a  meadow  stream,  his  gentle  reproof,  his  sane 
and  helpful  counsel,  his  sustaining  sympathy  and 
tranquilizing  faith  when  the  black  waves  of  bereave- 
ment broke  over  the  soul.  We  think  of  these  things, 
and  we  are  aware  that  we  shall  never  know  another 
such  as  he. 

Dr.  Pepper  was  a  picturesque  and  a  noble  figure. 
He  was  tall,  lanky,  angular.  His  head  was  large, 
with  straight,  fine-set  nose ;  a  mouth  both  tender  and 
strong,  the  broad  upper  lip  irregular  and  constantly 
in  play;  very  heavy  eyebrows  that  overhung  gray 
eyes,  eyebrows  that,  craglike  in  repose,  in  conversa- 
tion were  mobile  as  a  wave,  gathered  their  full 
volume,  hung  suspended,  and  crashed;  a  high  fore- 
head, surmounted  by  thick  hair  that  was  usually 
a  tangle  of  intense  thought.  His  hands  were  large 
and  conspicuous,  though  most  interestingly  modeled; 
his  legs  were  persistently  out  of  place;  his  clothes, 
though  always  neat,  showed  little  consciousness  of 
the  ebb  and  flow  of  fashion,  and  his  walk  was  a 
picturesque  drift;  rusticity  that  set  off  to  advantage 
the  essential  gentleness  and  fineness  of  his  nature. 
When  a  little  grandson  of  four  years  returned  from 
two  years  in  Paris,  he  propounded  to  his  father  the 
question,  "  Papa,  is  grandpa  a  preach  man  or  a 
farmer?  "  No  one,  by  the  way,  was  more  amused 
by  this  remark  than  the  object  of  it. 

His  wit  was  distinctive  and  lent  grace  to  every 
appropriate  occasion.  One  evening  in  prayer 
meeting  the  pastor  suggested,  after  a  somewhat 

[53] 


long  pause,  that  the  first  stanza  of  the  hymn, 
"  Father,  whate'er  of  earthly  bliss "  be  sung. 
The  stanza  runs  as  follows: 

"  Father,  whate'er  of  earthly  bliss 

Thy  sovereign  will  denies, 
Accepted  at  thy  throne  of  grace 
Let  this  petition  rise." 

The  singing  was  followed  by  another  pause,  which 
Dr.  Pepper  then  broke  by  saying:  "  Don't  you  think 
we  had  better  let  that  petition  rise?  " 

He  was  very  fond  of  playing  upon  words,  punning 
upon  them  with  the  merriest  abandon,  viewing 
them  at  fresh  angles,  and  throwing  them  into  juxta- 
position, getting  a  great  deal  out  of  words  by  putting 
a  great  deal  into  them.  This  added  charm  and  fe- 
licity to  his  lighter  address  and  lent  piquancy  and 
freshness  even  to  the  most  weighty  discourse. 
"  Beneficent,"  he  says,  in  the  Inaugural  Address, 
u  Beneficent  the  reaction  which  gives  not  only  the 
praise  of  sound  bodies,  but  the  sound  bodies  to 
praise."  In  the  easy  and  familiar  atmosphere  of 
the  home  this  merry  waggishness  was  never  laid 
aside.  When  Mrs.  Pepper  concluded  an  interrup- 
tion of  study  hours  with  the  interrogation,  "  But 
George,  do  you  still  love  me?  "  he  replied  with  mock 
gravity,  "  Yes,  Annie,  I  love  you  still.'1 

As  a  correspondent  he  was  inimitable.     Who  that 
has  ever  received  them  does  not  prize  his  merry, 
tender  letters!     From  many  I  quote  first  a  lette 
contributed  to  a  Christmas  symposium: 

[54] 


"  Merry  Christmas,  1899. 

1  This  is  a  symposium.  Now's  my  time  to  pose, 
I  'spose.  What  times  you  have!  What,  and  how 
many!  My!  Lucky  your  pa  didn't  go  west;  would 
never  have  filled  the  bill:  too  little  go,  not  brain 
enough,  couldn't  stand  the  social  stir,  mother  and  I, 
-  providential,  narrow  escape  for  us;  just  the  thing 
for  you  youngsters,  frisky,  tough  as  well,  or  before 
this  you  would  have  gone  to  fragments,  many 
baskets  of  fragments,  long,  narrow  fragments.  We 
will  stay  East  awhile, —  perhaps  in  Waterville,  or  in 
Saco,  or  in  Newton,  or  somewhere  else,  or  perhaps 
nowhere.  We  will  wait.  Folks  talk;  sweet  things 
said  to  us, —  t'other  sort  too?  Can't  say. 

"  We  are  in  clover  here  (Concord).  Air  thick 
with  metaphysical  and  literary  odors  of  the  past; 
shades  of  the  mighty  so  thick  as  to  make  darkness  at 
noonday, —  need  a  lantern  when  you  go  to  walk. 
Great  place, —  great  memories, —  great  grandchildren 
of  great  grandfathers  and  great  grandmothers; 
illustrious  fore  fathers  and  four  mothers.  We  are 
in  sunlight  all  the  same  when  we  look  out  of  our 
natural  eyes, —  day  delightful,  incomparable  for  the 
season,  games  indoors,  walks  outdoors,  a  ride  Satur- 
day, Church  yesterday.  S.  spoke  his  little  piece  last 
evening  at  Church  —  S-S  concert;  a  manly  im- 
perturbable body  and  soul.  Doubtless  all  the  rest 
have  told  this  and  the  other  news,  but  just  the  same 
we  think  '  favorably  '  of  you  two. 

"  Christmas  tree  up,  fruit  growing  on  it,  harvest 
to-night;  fair  crop  anticipated.  Wish  you  were  here 

[55] 


to  hear, —  and  see.  But  we  are  always  glad  to  get 
your  letters.  We  expect  to  keep  right  on  loving  you. 
We  all  do  so,  and  will. 

"  Your  owriy,  dony  Pa  Pepper. " 

One  of  the  very  last  letters  that  he  wrote  was  a 
message  of  welcome  to  a  little  grandson  newly-born: 

"  Dear  Little  Philip: 

"  You  are  a  wee  baby,  but  we  think  a  big  heap 
of  you.  You  make  us  all  do  just  as  you  please,  a 
little  tyrant  we  call  you.  Do  you  think  that  is  fair? 
Is  that  democratic?  You  have  started  wrong  — 
a  little  too  high  notions.  You  will  have  to  come 
down  a  peg  or  two.  You  are  thinking  you  are  an 
absolute  monarch.  Try  it  for  a  few  years  and  see 
if  you  don't  change  your  high  notions.  But  I  am 
not  sure  that  yours  is  not  the  easiest  plan  to  work  for 
a  while.  But,  my  boy,  mind  this,  it  will  not  work 
long.  It  is  made  for  a  world  of  short  babies;  so 
you  must  give  up  the  attempt  to  be  a  tall  monarch. 
Try  it  and  see.  Be  one  of  the  plain  people  like  the 
rest  of  us.  We  bid  you  welcome  to  the  Lincoln  — 
Abraham  Lincoln  —  aristocracy. 

"  Dear  little  Boy,  be  good  and  grow  better.  Why 
not  always  better?  We  will  give  you  a  good  chance, 
will  love  you  and  cheer  you  on. 

"  Cheer  up  little  boy.  Grow  as  fast  as  you  can, 
be  as  good  as  you  can.  We  want  you  to  be  good 
and  great.  The  best  little  boy,  and  then  the  best 
little  man,  and  then  the  best  man  in  the  world. 

[56] 


Good-bye,  Philip,  this  is  enough  until  next  time. 
Dear  boy,  good-bye.  Your  grand  Pa  Pepper." 

Many  a  man  of  to-day,  in  the  grim  stress  of  things, 
realizes  himself  professionally  through  the  subordina- 
tion or  neglect  of  the  social  and  domestic  life.  But 
this  is  the  very  part  of  Dr.  Pepper's  life  that  his 
friends  cherish  the  most.  He  exalted  the  sacred 
relations  of  the  home  and  lived  the  domestic  life 
with  sympathy  and  joy.  His  children  could  never 
imagine  him  to  have  said  an  unkind  word,  to  have 
had  an  ungenerous  thought,  or  to  have  done  a 
thoughtless  or  unjust  act.  He  and  Mrs.  Pepper  — 
and  how  unbalanced  does  a  sketch  of  Dr.  Pepper's 
life  seem  that  does  not  consider  equally  his  brilliant 
and,  to  use  his  own  word,  his  muUipotential  wife!  — 
he  and  Mrs.  Pepper  supplemented  one  another  ad- 
mirably, and  their  home  life,  unconventional  to  a 
degree,  but  radiant,  and  manifold  in  its  interests, 
attracted  all  classes  of  people.  To  enter  the  door 
was  to  enter  right  into  the  interests  of  the  home  and 
for  the  time  being  to  become  a  member  of  the  house- 
hold. A  student  of  over  twenty  years  ago  recalls 
his  impression  of  that  home  in  the  following  words: 
"  I  can  never  forget  your  fatherly  and  motherly 
kindness  when  I  first  entered  Colby  in  the  fall  of 

1 88-,  and  I  often  think  of  the  first  thing  P and 

I  did  to  help  earn  our  way,  and  that  was  to  clean  up 
your  little  garden  spot.  And  you  invited  us  into 
the  house,  and  we  shared  your  family  devotions  one 
morning.  How  at  home  you  made  us  feel!  M 

[57] 


Dr.  Pepper  had  a  strong  sense  of  civic  obligation, 
and  was  constantly  working  for  the  betterment  of 
the  community  in  which  he  chanced  to  live.  Thus 
he  was  for  several  years  President  of  the  Maine  Civic 
League.  So  general  was  the  recognition  of  his 
high-minded  public  spirit  and  of  his  fairness  in  a 
fight  that  he  actually  enjoyed  the  good  will,  if  not 
the  affection,  of  the  very  men  whose  occupations 
were  the  object  of  his  attack. 

Though  he  was  so  careful  to  place  spiritual  things 
first,  he  rejoiced  in  prosperity  and  material  welfare: 
"  We  love,"  he  said  on  one  occasion,  "  we  love  to  see 
enterprise  and  thrift.  We  are  glad  when  business  is 
brisk  and  sad  when  it  is  dull.  We  each  want  to 
succeed  in  our  own  business  and  if  we  are  not  meanly 
selfish  we  just  as  much  want  to  see  the  success  of 
our  neighbor.  As  citizens  of  Maine,  we  rejoice  in 
Maine's  prosperity  and  sorrow  in  her  adversity. 
Her  great  interests  are  dear  to  us,  every  one  of  them, 
—  the  shipping  interest,  the  fishing  interest,  agricul- 
ture, manufactures,  commerce,  even  the  summer 
visiting  industry.  When  Aroostook  shoots  forward, 
York  is  glad,  and  when  the  lumbermen  prosper  the 
fishermen  are  happy.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  '  get 
on  '  well  in  the  world,  to  have  the  comforts  and 
luxuries  of  this  life,  good  farms  and  farmhouses  and 
barns  and  stock,  a  good  bank  account,  plenty  of 
money  laid  up  for  a  rainy  day,  elegant  homes  in  the 
city,  everybody  making  a  living,  and  the  wolf  a 
long  way  from  the  door.  A  man  may  affect  to  make 
light  and  little  of  this,  may  so  represent  his  religion  as 

[58] 


to  slur  and  belittle  this  world  and  its  good.  Usually 
this  is  only  affectation,  and  always  a  mistake.  It  is 
not  less  a  mistake  than  they  make  who  will  know 
only  this  world  and  nothing  of  another.  Both  are 
wrong,  both  at  war  with  their  own  natures,  common 
sense,  and  the  Christian  religion.  Truly  this  is  God's 
world.  He  made  it,  he  owns  it,  he  cares  for  it.  We 
are  in  this  world  and  of  it.  We  are  here  to  use  it 
and  to  make  of  it  the  most  and  best  possible.  We 
could  be  sure  beforehand  that  a  revelation  from  God 
would  put  honor  upon  industry,  enterprise,  thrift, 
business,  push,  pluck,  and  success.  God  denies 
himself,  if  he  denies  that  nature  which  he  himself 
has  given  us.  But  he  does  not  deny  it." 

In  fact,  from  whatever  point  of  view  we  survey 
his  life,  we  find  it  beautifully  sound  and  balanced, 
no  one  of  the  fundamental  appeals  which  life  makes 
to  a  man  neglected.  The  professional  appeal,  the 
civic  appeal,  the  domestic  and  social  appeal,  the 
appeal  of  things  material,  the  appeal  of  things 
spiritual,  all  of  these  were  heeded  and  mutually 
adjusted,  —  a  man  great  in  body,  in  mind,  in  spirit. 

As  I  sit  this  morning  upon  the  porch  of  my  summer 
cottage  on  the  west  shore  of  our  beautiful  Puget 
Sound,  the  sun  is  just  bursting  over  the  distant 
mountain  ridge,  set  in  glorious  amber  light.  Before 
me  and  at  my  feet  stretch  the  quiet  waters  of  the 
sound.  Here  and  there  a  craft  is  leaving  an  early 
port  or  making  a  late  one.  Beyond  the  sound  are 
fir-clad  shores,  and  towering  over  these  the  broken 

[59] 


line  of  the  snow-capped  Cascades.  But  far  above 
all  other  peaks  soar  Mt.  Baker  and  Mt.  Rainier, 
domes  of  purest  white.  Even  as  I  write,  the  morning 
mist  envelops  one  of  them,  and  for  the  time  it 
vanishes  from  view.  Those  two  peaks  are  the 
subject  of  this  sketch,  and  my  aged  father  who 
sits  beside  me  as  I  write,  fit  companions  for  eternity 
as  they  were  dear  companions  upon  the  earth,  the 
purest,  loftiest  spirits  that  I  have  known  among  the 
sons  of  men. 


[60] 


LOAN  DEPT. 


T  T»  91  A— 50wi-8,*61 
L(?1795slO)476B 


YC    03719 


34051 1 


ITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


